HOW  TO  ENJOY  PICTURES 


V 


I-. :  \   .    '  1 1  \  I  1  I  -    ;.     \  \  1 1    i  I ;  -    i   \  m  : :  ,  . 

(.  I //'•>•  the  f>ai tiling  by  A.  van  liyck,  iicnv  in  flif  /vsxrssion  o/ His  (iracf  tlir  Ihtkr  o/ Kichimmd  and 

Gordon,  K.(l.) 


-HOW 
TO  ENJOY  PICTURES. 


BY 

MRS.    HENRY    HEAD 


M^4>'<^'^ 


NEW    YORK 

FREDERICK    A.    STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


WITH  34  ILLUSTRATIONS 


All  rif^hts  resertrd 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction  i 

PART  I 
ITALY  AND  HKR  PAINTERS 

Chapter 

I.   Cimabue,  Giotto,  Fra  Angelico  9 

II.  Pisancllo,  Paolo  Uccello,  Massaccio, 
Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  Botticelli,  Piero 
della  Francesca  17 

III.  Leonardo  da  \'inci,  Michelangelo  32 

IV.  Perugino,  Raphael  48 
V.   Mantegna,  Crivclli                                          58 

VI.  Giovanni  Bellini  63 

\  II.  Carpaccio,  Giorgione  69 

\'III.  Titian  74 

IX.  Lorenzo  Lotto,  Moroni,  W-ronese  79 

V 


^  o  '^  O  Hr  »> 


CONTENTS 

PART  II 
EARLY  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

Chapter  Page 

I.  Jan  Van  Eyck,  Memling  85 

II.   Breughel  93 

PART  III 
THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 
I.   Albrecht  Diirer,  Cranach  99 

II.    Holbein  108 

PART  IV 
LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 
I.   Rubens  1 1  5 

II.   Van  Dyck  i  26 

PART  V 
DUTCH  PAINTERS 
I.   Frans  Hals  135 

II.   Rembrandt  140 

III.  Paul  Potter,  Cuyp,  Hobbema  150 

IV.  Jan  Steen,  Pieter  de  Hooch  150 

vi 


CONTENTS 

PART  VI 
THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

Chapter  Page 

I.   El  Greco  173 

II.  \'elasqiiez  179 

III.  xMurillo  193 

IV.  Goya  197 

PART  VII 
FRENCH  PAINTERS 

I.   Clouet  201 

II.   VVatteau,  Lancret  205 

III.  Chardin  217 
I\'.    Boucher  223 

V.   David  229 

PART  VIII 

THE  ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

I.   Hogarth  240 

II.   A  Little  Group  of  Late  Italian  Painters    249 

III.   Joshua  Reynolds  254 

vii 


CONTENTS 

Chapter 

IV.   Gainsborough 
V.   Romney 
VI.   Richard  Wilson 
VU.   Morland 


Page 
266 

276 

283 

288 


Ind 


EX 


•95 


Vlll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


NoTK. —  72' f"  plates  are  in  colour,  except  those  marked  zvith  an  asterisk 

King  Charles  I.  and  his  Family    Vcmayck       Frontispiece 

S.  Francis  feeding  the  Birds       Giotto 
S.  Anthony  and  S.  George         Pisanello 


TO   PACK    PAGE 


lO 


i8 


*  Detail     from    a    Virgin    and 

Child 

The  \'irgin  and  Child 
Frederigo  Di  Montefeltro 

The  Head  of  Christ 
The  Crucifixion 
*Popc  Leo  X. 

*  Parnassus 

The  Madonna  and  Child  Imi- 
throned 


Fllippo  Lippi        21 

Botticelli  28 

Piero  della  Fran- 
ce sea  30 

Leonardo  (la  Vinci  36 

Perugino  48 

Raphael  52 

Mantegna  60 

Giovanni  Bellini    66 


IX 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


TO    FACE   PAGE 


*The  Arrival  of  S.  Ursula 

The  Virgin  and  Child  En- 
throned between  S.  Liber- 
ale  and  S.  Francis 

Portrait  of  Jean  Arnolfini 

Portrait  of  an  Old  Man 

*Winter      Landscape       with 
Huntsmen 

Portrait  of  the  Emperor 
Maximilian 

The  Duchess  of  Milan 

The  Chapeau  de  Poil 

The  Prophetess  Hannah  and 
Samuel 

*The  Young  Bull 

*Interior  of  a  Dutch  House 

*The  Burial  of  Count  d'Orgaz 
The  Omelette  Woman 
The  Infanta  Margerita 

*Mosca  Cieca 


Carpaccio 


JO 


Giorgione  72 

Jan  Van  Eyck     88 

Hans  Memling     92 

Pieter  Breughel 
the  Elder  94 

AlbrechtDurer  102 
Holbein  1 1 2 

Rubens  1 1 8 

Rembrandt  1 46 

Paul  Potter  i  50 
Pieter  de  Hooch  1 66 

£/  Greco  174 

Velasquez  1 80 

Velasquez  1 90 

Goya  200 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


TO   FACE   PAGE 


Portrait  at  Elizabeth  of  Aus- 
tria 

The  Champs-Elysees 

Camargo  Dancing 

Le  Dejeuner 

Portrait  of  Madame  Serizait      Davii!  232 

*The  Blue  Boy  Gainsborough     268 

On  the  River  Wye  Richard  Wilson  286 

The  Inside  of  a  Stable  George Mor land  2(^0 


Francois  Clouet  204 
Watteau  2  i  2 

Lancret  2 1 4 

Boucher  226 


XI 


A  CHRONOLOCC; 


Floren- 
tine 


Milan- 
ese 

Floren- 
tine 


Cimabue 
Giotto 

Fra  Angelico 
Paolo  Uccello 
Massaccio 
Lippo  Lippi 


Botticelli 
Da  Vinci 
Michelangelo 


1240- 1300 
1 276- 1 3 36 

1387-1455 
I397-M75 
1401-1428 
14061469 


1447-1510 
1452-1519 
1474-15C3 


Umbria 


Umbria 


^L  CHART  OF  THE  PAINTERS  MENTIONED  IN 


ALIAN. 

i 

FLEMISH,  GERMAN,  AND  D 

Venetian 

Pisanello 

1397- 1455 

Flemish 

Van  Eyck 

C.  I 

I 

ero  d. 

incesca 

1416-1492 

Paduan 

Mantegna 

1431-150G 

Memling 

M3' 

rugino 

1446-1523 

Venetian 

Bellini 

142S-1516 

Mabuse 

147. 

Crivelli 

1430-1493 

German 

Diirer 

147 

Carpaccio 

1450-1522 

Giorgione 

1477-1511 

Cranach 

147: 

Titian 

1477-157G 

Holbein 

149' 

Lotto 

1476  155? 

Dutch 

A.  Mor 

151^ 

aphael 

1483:520 

Moroni 

1525-157S 

Flemish 

Breughel 

d. 

Veronese 

1528-15SS 

Dutcli 

Rubens 
Van  Dyck 
Fjans  Hals 
Rembrandt 
Cuyp 

Paul  Potter 
Jan  Steen 
Hooch 
Hobbema 

157: 
i59< 
i58( 
i6o( 

l62( 

162^ 

l62( 

162c 
163^ 

Tiepolo 

1 696- 1 770 

Canaletto 

1697-1768 

Longhi 

1 702-1785? 

Guardi 

1712-1793 

A  CHRONOLOGICAL  CHART  OF  THE  PAINTERS  MENTIONED  IN  "A  SIMPLE  GUIDE  TO  PICTURES." 


ITALIAN. 

FLEMISH,  GERMAN,  AND  DUTCH 

FRENCH. 

SPANISH. 

ENGLISH. 

Floren- 

Cimabue 

1240-1300 

tine 

Giotto 

Fra  Angelico 
Paolo  Uccello 
Massaccio 
Lippo  Lippi 

1276-1336 

1387-1455 
I397-M75 
1401-1428 
1406-1469 

Umbrian 

Piero  d. 
Francesca 

1416-1492 

Venetian 
Paduan 

Pisanello 
Mantegna 

•397-1455 
1431.1506 

Flemish 

Van  Eyck 
Memling 

c.  1390- 
1440 

1430-1490 

Botticelli 

1447-1510 

Perugino 

1446-1523 

Venetian 

Bellini 
Crivelli 

1428-1516 
1430-1493 

German 

M abuse 
Durer 

1470-1541 
I47'-I528 

Milan- 

Da  Vinci 

1452-1519 

Carpaccio 
Giorgione 

1450-1522 
1477-1511 

Cranach 

1472-1553 

Floren- 

Michelangelo 

1474-1563 

Titian 

1477-1576 

Holbein 

1497-1543 

tine 

Umbrian 

Raphael 

1483-1520 

Lotto 
Moroni 

1476  I55i 
1525-157S 

Dutch 
Flemish 

A.  Mor 
Breughel 

1519-1576 
d.  1625 

Clouet 

1510-1572 

Veronese 

152S-1588 

Dutch 

Rubens 
Van  Dyck 
Frans  Hals 
Rembrandt 
Cuyp 

Paul  Potter 
Jan  Steen 
Hooch 
Hobbema 

1577-164C 
1599-1641 
1580- 1666 
1 606- 1 669 
1620-1691 
1625-1654 
1626-1679 
1629-1677 
1638-1709 

Poussin 
Claude 

1594-1665 
1600-16S2 

El  Greco 
Velasquez 
Murillo 

1545-1614 
1599-1660 
1617-1682 

Hans  Eworts 
Isaac  Oliver 

Dobson 
Leiy 

1543-1574 
1556-1617 

1610-1646 
1618-1680 

Tiepolo 

1696-1770 

Watleau 

1684-1721 

Canaletto 

1697-1768 

Lancret 

1690- 1 743 

Longhi 

1 702-1785? 

Chardin 

1699-1779 

Gnardi 

1712-1793 

Boucher 

1703-1770 

Hogarth 

Wilson 

Reynolds 

Gainsborough 

Romney 

'697-1764 
1714-1782 
1723-1792 
1727-1788 
1734-1802 

David 

1748-1825 

Goya 

1746-1828  Morland 

1763-1804 

Lawrence 

1769-1830 

HOW   TO    ENJOY 
PICTURES 


INTRODUCTION 

"The  aim  of  education  is  to  bring  the  liighest  gifts  of  the 
imagination  to  bear  upon  life." 

Fairy  godmothers  came  to  the  cradle  of  the  little 
Princess  in  our  story-books,  bringing  fairy  gifts  for 
future  blessing,  as  we  all  know  well.  But  our 
cradles  were  no  less  fortunate,  for  to  each  one  of  us, 
born  into  this  happy  world,  were  given  five  price- 
less gifts,  quite  fairy-like  if  we  come  to  think  of 
them — seeing,  hearing,  touching,  smelling,  and 
tasting. 

This  book  concerns  the  first  of  these  gifts  only, 
and  it  is,  after  tasting,  the  first  of  which  we  appear 
to  be  conscious.  Before  even  the  eyes  of  the  baby- 
child  can  focus,  you  see  it  stretch  out  its  hands  to 
sun-ravs,  to  any  bright  dancing  objerts,  to  fire-  or 
candle-light,  or  rerietted  gleams  on  polished  brass 
or  copper.  Later  you  will  yourselves  remember 
how  the  sight  of  pleasant  things  is  mixed  up  with 

R 


INTRODUCTION 

all  your  early  joys — the  checkered  patches  of  sun- 
light and  shadow  over  the  road  as  you  walked,  the 
green  tree-tops  tossed  against  the  blue  sky,  the 
white  clouds  massed  above  the  chimney-tops  or 
turning  golden  at  sunset  time.  Indoors  you  re- 
member the  square  of  sunshine  shifting  its  position 
on  the  walls  of  staircase  or  nursery,  or  lying  aslant 
the  floor ;  the  fire-light  leaping  on  the  well-known 
furniture  and  changing  the  look  of  it.  All  this  time 
you  will  have  been  making  pictures  without 
knowing  it,  pictures  which  you  will  carry  about 
with  you  probably  all  your  lives.  Besides  this,  you 
will  have  had  pidture-books :  first  of  all  pictures  of 
dogs  and  horses,  motor-cars  and  furniture-vans,  and 
you  will  have  learnt  to  recognize  them  and  com- 
pare them  with  the  real  animals  and  carriages  of 
difi^erent  kinds  which  you  saw  on  your  walks  or 
from  your  windows.  Later  will  have  come  illus- 
trated books,  Bible-stories  or  fairy-stories,  w^here 
the  piftures  put  before  you  tell  how  the  people  of 
whom  you  read  looked,  and  in  what  kind  of  a 
world  they  moved.  Lastly  you  will  come  to 
pictures,  real  pictures  by  great  artists  of  the 
mighty  past,  and  these  pictures  are  our  great  in- 
heritance because  they  belong  trulv  to  all  those  of 
us  who  see  them  with  understanding  eyes  and  a 
mind  open  to  learn  the  secret  of  their  beauty. 

To  love  pictures  well  is  to  feel  at  home  in  every 
country  of  Europe,  and  in  many  cities  of  America 

2 


INTRODUCTION 

too.  When  you  go  abroad  and  are  feeling  perhaps 
strange  and  a  little  homesick  in  quite  new  sur- 
roundings, you  have  only  to  seek  out  a  pi(^hire- 
gallery,  and  in  a  moment  you  are  surrounded  by 
august  friends  and  glorious  associations.  This  hap- 
pens over  and  over  again.  You  mount  the  great 
stairs,  you  push  open  the  heavy  doors,  and,  standing 
on  the  wide,  empty,  shining  floors,  you  find  your- 
self no  longer  a  stranger  amongst  strangers,  but  a 
child  of  the  house  among  kindred  that  he  loves — 
honoured  kindred  to  whose  shrines  he  has  made  a 
lengthy  pilgrimage.  But  such  happiness  is  reached 
only  along  the  paths  of  knowledge,  and  the  steps 
you  take  towards  it  must  at  first  be  little  patient 
ones. 

Let  me  tell  you,  to  begin  with,  what,  so  far  as  we 
know,  are  the  first  pictures  ever  made  in  our  Con- 
tinent. To  do  this  we  must  go  back  to  the  days 
when  the  Greeks  were  masters  of  the  world.  With 
them,  love  of  beauty  went  side  by  side  with  success 
in  conquest,  and  when  vou  go  to  Athens  vou  will 
see  still  standing  the  temples  built  by  them  in 
those  far-ofl-"  days  of  triumph  when  victories  were 
celebrated,  of  which  we  read  in  ancient  books.  Such 
vi(5lories  the  Greeks  carved  in  marble,  and  these 
carven  picftures  we  may  still  see  and  marvel  at. 
They  had  also,  as  we  learn,  pi(5lures  and  pitture- 
galleries  close  to  their  temples  and  sacred  en- 
closures, but  these  have  all  been  lost,  pictures  being, 

3 


INTRODUCTION 

as  you  will  easily  understand,  far  more  perishable 
than  statues. 

When  Greece  was  conquered  in  its  turn,  the 
vi(5lorious  Romans  carried  off  many  beautiful  things 
with  them,  and  filled  their  villas  with  bronze 
figures,  and  cups  and  vases  of  painted  earthenware  ; 
introducing  thus  into  Italy  a  love  of  design  and 
colour  and  symmetry  which  has  influenced,  through 
succeeding  centuries,  the  whole  of  Europe. 

All  this  happened  before  the  Christian  era,  and 
with  the  coming  of  Christianity  to  Rome  a  very 
curious  change  took  place.  The  Romans  in  their 
pagan  days  had  adorned  their  houses  and  temples, 
their  baths  and  palaces,  with  wall-paintings,  some- 
times painted  on  to  the  wall  itself,  more  often  com- 
posed of  small  fragments  of  coloured  stone  or  glass,  | 
put  together  to  form  a  pi6ture,  and  called  a  "mosaic."  j 
These  pidlures  for  the  most  part  represented  stories 
from  their  mythologv,  Jupiter  with  his  eagle  and 
thunderbolt.  Mercury  and  his  two  serpents, 
Orpheus  and  his  lyre  ;  or  illustrations  of  whole 
fables,  such  as  the  beautiful  story  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche. 

But  as  the  Romans  became  christianized,  they  no 
longer  wished  to  see  their  walls  decorated  with 
pictures  of  the  gods  in  whom  thev  had  ceased  to 
believe.  The  beginnings  of  this  new  art  were 
hidden  far  underground  in  the  Catacombs  at 
Rome,  where  in  the  early  days  of  persecution  the 

4 


INTRODUCTION 

Christians  used  secretly  to  worship.  There  we  can 
still  see  painted  on  the  wall  frescoes  or  pi(5tures  of 
sacred  subjects — Christ  the  Good  Siiepherd  carrying 
the  weakling  lamb,  or,  a  shepherd's  pipe  in  His 
hand,  surrounded  by  His  Hocking  sheep.  In  this 
attitude  Christ  reminds  us  of  the  Orpheus  of  earlier 
designs,  and  indeed  the  artists  had  learned  to  adapt 
the  old  subjects  of  their  art  to  the  requirements  of 
the  new  religion  that  was  surely  conquering  the 
world.  Thev  painted,  too,  subjecfls  from  the  Old 
Testament,  but  always  such  as  would  illustrate  the 
New — Noah  in  his  Ark,  to  signify  the  Church  of 
Christ  ;  Moses  striking  the  Rock,  because  Christ's 
side  was  pierced  on  the  cross ;  Jonah  and  his 
whale,  foreshadowing  the  Resurrection  ;  Elijah  and 
the  tiery  horses,  showing  forth  the  Ascension  of 
Christ  into  Heaven. 

Four  centuries  later  the  need  for  secrecy  was  over, 
and  Christianity  was  enthroned,  the  religion  of  the 
State.  Now  the  Catacombs  were  forsaken,  and 
churches  were  built  in  honourable  positions,  and 
decorated  with  gorgeous  mosaics.  These  mosaics 
may  still  be  seen  in  many  Roman  churches  and  in 
the  Cathedral  of  Ravenna,  far  north  of  Rome.  They 
follow  the  lines  of  architecture,  filling  all  the  spaces 
between  the  arches,  for  example,  and  the  windows, 
where,  in  our  churches,  we  are  accustomed  to  see 
bare  walls.  On  these  spaces  in  these  early  churches 
you  will  see,  against  backgrounds  of  glowing  gold, 

5 


INTRODUCTION 

great  figures  of  Christ,  His  hand  lifted  in  blessing, 
surrounded  by  groups  of  winged  angels,  and  below, 
the  flowing  rivers  of  Paradise.  Processions  you  see, 
too,  of  Saints  and  Martyrs,  Virgins  and  Confessors ; 
there,  too,  is  the  Virgin  with  the  Holy  Child. 
From  their  very  nature,  mosaics  can  only  be  seen 
in  the  churches  for  which  they  were  made.  I  tell 
you  about  them  that  you  may  understand  how  the 
desire  to  teach  the  docflrines  of  their  religion  to  the 
ignorant,  and  to  impress  the  same  on  the  few  who 
were  learned,  inspired  the  founders  of  these  early 
churches,  and  was  the  determining  reason  for  these 
magnificent  decorations.  In  those  days  there  were 
no  books  as  we  now  know  them ;  printing  was  not 
invented  for  many  years  later.  Every  book  then 
existing  had  been  painstakingly  inscribed  word  by 
word,  and  such  books,  or  manuscripts  as  they  were 
called,  were  of  necessity  very  costly.  They  were 
mostly  illustrated,  sometimes  only  with  illuminated 
capital  letters,  oftener  by  miniature  pic^fures,  very 
vivid  in  a6lion  and  gay  in  colour.  You  may  still  see 
them,  carefully  preserved  in  museums  and  libraries, 
glowing  with  gold  leaf,  as  fresh  now  as  when  they 
were  first  painted. 

But  a  full  stop  came  to  the  development  of  these 
peaceful  arts.  For  four  long  centuries  Italy  was  at 
war,  and  the  land  was  filled  with  battle-cries  and 
the  sound  of  conflicting  hosts.  Rome  itself  was 
sacked,  barbarians  from  the  North  flocked  in,  and 

6 


INTRODUCTION 

the  worship  of  beauty  ceased.  When  later  churches 
were  built,  there  was  no  one  left  who  knew  how  to 
make  the  rich  mosaics  for  their  walls.  Strange  artists 
had  to  be  sent  for  from  far-away  Byzantium,  our 
Constantinople,  and  they  had  different  ways  of  in- 
terpreting the  old  subjects;  they  veiled  the  Virgin's 
head,  and  covered  her  feet  with  the  straight,  stiff 
folds  of  her  falling  robe. 

In  the  tenth  century  the  great  republic  of  Venice 
began  to  grow  in  power,  helped  by  Byzantium, 
whose  merchants  needed  a  friendly  port  on  the 
Adriatic  for  their  ships.  Thus  it  came  about  that, 
when  the  Venetians  built  their  great  Cathedral  of 
S.  Mark,  they  adorned  it,  within  and  without,  with 
mosaics  of  this  Byzantine  type. 

And  now  there  began  for  the  whole  of  the  Latin 
race  a  rich,  free,  and  glorious  epoch.  In  1204 
Constantinople  fell,  and  many  of  its  most  skilful 
artists  and  most  learned  men  left  their  homes  to 
come  and  settle  in  Italy,  spreading  their  skill  and 
knowledge  among  their  conquerors.  When  people 
live  in  peace  and  begin  to  amass  wealth,  they  have 
much  time  and  money  to  spend  on  beautiful  things, 
especially  when  their  religion  itselt  encourages  them 
to  do  so.  The  Head  of  the  Church  at  this  time  was 
the  wise  and  gentle  Pope  Innocent  III,  who,  you 
remember,  excommunicated  King  John  of  England. 
This  great  ruler  made  his  power  felt  throughout 
Europe,  upheld  the  supreniacy  of  the  Church,  and 

7 


INTRODUCTION 

wore  himself  out  in  his  efforts  to  establish  its  glory. 
Under  him  religious  art  flourished,  and  it  is  from 
the  period  of  his  rule,  in  the  early  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, that  our  account  of  painting  in  Europe  really 
begins. 


PART  I 
ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

CHAPTER  I 

In  the  time  of  the  Pope  Innocent  III  there  lived 
the  great  Francis  of  Assisi,  whose  real  name  was 
John,  but  who  was  called  Francis,  or  "  The  Little 
Frenchman,"  because  he  loved  so  well  the  songs  of 
the  French  troubadours  and  all  gay,  bright,  happy 
things.  Although  his  own  parents  were  well  ofi",  he 
gave  up  everything  for  the  poor,  and  even  begged  tor 
them,  going  from  door  to  door  in  his  coarse  brown 
tunic,  shoeless,  and  without  so  much  as  a  staff  in 
his  hands.  He  founded  the  Order  of  the  Franciscan 
Friars,  which  Pope  Innocent  III  confirmed,  and 
after  his  death  he  was  honoured  as  a  saint  by  all 
good  Christian  people.  Pilgrims  came  from  all  parts 
to  Assisi,  where  his  convent  stood  on  a  very  steep 
hill.  With  the  gifts  they  brought,  it  was  planned 
to  build  two  very  large  churches  one  above  the 
other,  connedted  by  winding  stairs;  and  it  was  on 
the  walls  of  the  Lower  Church  that  Cimabue,  the 
first  great  painter  of  Italy,  painted  his  pictures. 

9 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

CiMABUE    (  I  240-1  300). 

As  a  boy  Cimabue  had  been  sent  to  Santa  Maria 
Novella  in  Florence  to  learn  grammar  at  the 
convent  school.  But  all  day  long  he  cared  only  to 
draw  men  and  horses  and  houses,  and  in  time  he 
became  an  artist,  great  enough  to  be  sent  to  Assisi, 
to  decorate  first  the  Lower,  and  then  the  Upper, 
Church  of  the  convent  with  pi6lures  of  great  beauty 
and  richness.  For  his  own  Church  of  Santa  Maria 
Novella  in  Florence  he  painted  a  pifture,  not  on 
the  walls,  but  on  a  wooden  panel,  and  when  it  was 
finished,  and  the  people  came  to  his  house  and  saw 
Our  Lady  and  the  Angels  standing  there  as  if  in 
life,  they  were  so  amazed  by  the  beauty  of  the 
picflure  that  they  carried  it  to  the  church  with  a 
procession  of  great  pomp  and  with  glad  sounds  of 
trumpets,  and  with  such  heartfelt  joyfulness,  that 
the  streets  through  which  they  passed  were  called 
the  "  Streets  of  Rejoicing  "  for  long  years  after. 

Now,  this  great  painter,  Cimabue,  was  in  the 
country  one  day,  about  fourteen  miles  from  Florence, 
when  he  found  a  little  boy  minding  his  father's 
sheep  ;  before  him  was  a  large,  smooth  rock,  and  on 
it  with  a  small,  sharp  stone  the  child  was  drawing  a 
sheep  so  faithfully  that  Cimabue  knew  him  to  be 
an  artist,  took  him  back  to  Florence  with  him,  and 
taught  him  all  he  knew.  This  little  boy  was  the 
painter  Giotto. 

10 


•^ 


( .ll'/rr  llir  J'rrxrn  hy  (SioHo  in  tlir  I'lttifili  n/  S.  /•'ratiris  it  I  Axaiyi.^ 


GIOTTO 

Giotto   (i 276-1  336). 

The  work  of  Giotto  is  of  the  very  greatest  impor- 
tance in  the  story  of  painting,  because,  before  him, 
the  pid:ures  in  the  churches  had  given  people  only 
what  they  expelled  to  see.  They  wanted  gold  back- 
grounds, with  saints  and  angels  arranged  against 
them  in  shining  groups,  and  such  decorations  had 
great  beauty,  but  they  had  no  connection  with  real 
everyday  men  and  women,  or  the  world  they  lived 
in.  Giotto  first  painted  life  as  he  really  saw  it,  and 
how  vividly  he  saw  it,  we  can  still  feel  when  we 
stand  in  admiration  before  his  work  at  Assisi.  For 
he  continued  to  carry  on  the  work  of  adorning  the 
churches  of  S.  Francis,  and  painted  on  the  walls  of 
the  churches  thirty-two  stories  from  the  life  of  the 
Saint.  One  of  them  you  will  see  illustrated  here 
in  your  book.  It  is  the  story  of  how  S.  Francis 
preached  to  tlie  birds.  You  can  see  how  every  point 
is  brought  out  by  Giotto,  so  that  all  the  worshippers 
in  the  convent  church  might  through  all  ages  read 
from  the  painted  walls  as  easily  as  from  a  printed 
book.  The  talc  tells  how  S.  Francis  once  went  on  a 
journey,  and  took  with  him  Brother  Masseo  of  his 
Order,  and,  as  they  were  going  on  their  way,  they 
saw  a  great  company  of  birds.  S.  Francis  told  his 
companion  to  wait  while  he  preached  to  his  little 
sisters,  the  birds.  You  see  to  the  left  of  the  pidture 
Brother  Masseo  in  his  brown  habit,  with  bare  feet 

1 1 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

and  a  cord  round  his  waist,  his  hand  uplifted  in 
wonder  at  the  sight.  Then  S.  Francis  began  to 
preach,  and  as  he  preached  the  Httle  birds  left  the 
trees  and  listened  humbly  from  the  ground.  You 
see  them  all — the  thrushes  with  their  spotted 
breasts,  blackbirds,  gay-coloured  finches,  a  host  ot 
little  birds,  all  listening  reverently  to  the  words  of 
the  sermon.  When  it  was  over  they  waited  quietly, 
nor  did  they  think  of  flying  away  till  S.  Francis 
had  dismissed  them  with  his  blessing.  Brother 
Masseo  tells  us  later  the  subject  of  the  sermon.  In  it 
the  Saint  impressed  on  his  little  congregation  how 
specially  they  were  bound,  at  all  times  and  in  all 
places,  to  give  praise  to  God  for  their  liberty,  for 
their  feathered  garments,  for  their  food,  which  they 
enjoyed  without  either  sowing  or  reaping,  for  their 
safe  nesting-places,  and  for  all  the  good  things  God 
had  so  freely  given  to  them.  "  Therefore,"  says  the 
Father,  "  beware,  my  little  sisters,  of  the  sin  of 
ingratitude,  and  study  always  to  give  praises  unto 
God,  your  Creator."  Then,  the  sermon  being  over, 
the  birds  opened  their  beaks,  spread  their  wings, 
and  by  their  songs  showed  S.  Francis  their  exceed- 
ing great  joy.  The  Saint  marvelled  at  their  sweet 
friendliness,  made  the  sign  of  the  Cross  over  them, 
and  bade  them  depart.  And  as  they  rose  in  the  air, 
they  flew  in  the  fashion  of  the  Cross  and  divided  to 
the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  singing  and  praising 
God.  And    by    this    pidiure    the    Brothers   of  the 

12 


GIOTTO 

Order  were  taught  how  they,  too,  must  depart,  like 
the  birds,  possessing  nothing,  trusting  only  in  God's 
providence,  carrying  the  lesson  of  the  Cross  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the  globe. 

The  new  Pope,  Boniface  \^III,  heard  of  Giotto's 
painting,  and  sent  one  of  his  courtiers  to  Florence 
to  find  out  if  he  really  was  such  a  fine  artist  as  men 
said.  The  messenger  asked  Giotto  for  a  little  draw- 
ing to  take  back  with  him  to  His  Holiness,  and 
being  a  man  of  courteous  manners,  Giotto  dipped 
his  pen  in  red  paint,  and  with  one  turn  of  his  hand 
made  a  perfect  circle.  This  he  gave  to  the  messen- 
ger, who  thought  it  but  a  poor  present  for  a  mighty 
Pope.  But  the  Pope  understood  better,  and  sent  tor 
Giotto  to  Rome,  where  he  made  designs  for  mosaics 
in  S.  Peter's  itself,  and  received  much  gold  and 
many  favours  in  return  for  his  work.  It  was  while 
on  this  visit  to  Rome  in  the  year  1300  that  Giotto 
made  friends  with  the  great  poet  Dante,  whose 
portrait  he  painted  later  on  the  walls  of  a  palace 
chapel  in  Florence.  There  you  can  still  see  it.  The 
poet's  face  is  in  profile,  with  his  great  hooked  nose, 
a  hood  over  his  head,  a  flower  in  his  hand,  and  a 
book  under  his  arm.  This  pidture  is  specially 
interesting,  because  it  is  the  first  portrait  that  we 
possess  of  a  man,  piiinted  during  his  own  lifetime. 

Giotto  was  an  architect  too,  and  he  was  building 
the  campanile  or  bell-tower  of  the  cathedral  at 
Florence  when    he   died,  to   be  buried  with   great 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

honours  in  the  cathedral  he  had  helped  to  beautify. 
It  was  in  Giotto's  time  that  the  French  Pope, 
Clement  V,  went  to  live  at  Avignon  in  France. 
Giotto  was  asked  to  go  there  to  decorate  the  Pope's 
palace  at  Avignon,  but  the  artist  died  before  he  had 
time  to  make  the  journey. 

Giotto's  picflures  take  us,  as  I  told  you,  straight 
to  the  life  of  his  day  :  at  Assisi  we  see  the  little 
street-boys  mocking  the  woman  who,  symbolizing 
poverty,  is  wedded  to  S.  Francis  ;  in  S.  Peter's  in 
Rome  is  the  mosaic  of  Christ  walking  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  while  a  little  urchin  sits  quietly  fishing 
with  a  line  from  the  shore ;  at  Naples,  in  a  fresco 
celebrating  a  royal  marriage,  there  is  a  fiddler 
playing  and  a  lad  fluting,  while  youths  and  maidens 
dance  to  the  measure.  And  Giotto  too,  a  country 
lad,  first  painted  landscape  in  his  pictures.  We  see 
the  trees  standing  out  against  the  blue  sky  in  our 
picture  with  the  life-like  little  birds,  which  is  in 
itself  a  great  advance  after  the  stiff  golden  back- 
grounds of  the  earlier  pictures. 

It  was  Giotto,  also,  who  first  painted  in  schemes 
of  colour  that  should  please  the  eye  ;  he  saw  the 
beauty  of  the  world  around  him,  and  chose  from  it 
the  things  which  in  his  pi(5tures  should  both  charm 
the  imagination  and  satisfy  people's  love  of  reality. 
But  when  you  compare  Giotto's  pictures  with  the 
work  of  those  who  came  before  him,  you  must  not 
condemn   the   old   mosaics   with    their    round-eyed 

H 


FRA  ANGELICO 

Madonnas  and  stilF  attendant  saints  ;  they  Ivave 
their  beauty,  which  we  are  bound  to  recognize, 
though  with  Giotto,  men's  minds  were  reaching  out 
to  solve  new  problems,  and  a  new  order  of  things 
was  beginning. 

Fra  Angelico  (i  387-1455). 

Some  fifty  years  after  the  death  of  Giotto  there 
was  born  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Florence  a 
painter  who  was  also  a  saint.  He  did  not,  like 
Giotto,  seek  to  bring  the  things  of  everyday  life 
into  his  pi6lures,  but  he  painted  always  as  if  Heaven 
lay  open  before  his  eyes.  He  did  not  choose  to 
make  money  by  his  art,  but  he  entered  the  Order 
of  Preaching  Brothers,  and  painted  only  for  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  brotherhood.  He 
carried  on  the  decoration  of  Santa  Maria  Novella, 
which  Giotto  had  begun;  and  when  the  Convent 
of  San  Marco  was  built  for  his  Order,  he  painted 
on  its  walls  great  frescoes  with  scenes  taken  from 
the  Passion  of  our  Lord,  which  are  still  to  be  seen 
there  to  this  very  day.  But  beyond  all  things  he 
loved  to  paint  the  joys  of  Paradise,  where  multi- 
tudes of  tiny  figures  are  seen  rejoicing  amongst  the 
flowery  meadows.  So  sincere  was  his  reverence  for 
these  sacred  themes,  that  he  painted,  we  are  told, 
always  upon  his  knees  ;  nor  would  he  ever  alter 
anything    that    he    had    once  finished,   because   he 

15 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

knew  it  was  God's  hand  that  had  guided  his  brush. 
He  refused  all  earthly  honours  offered  to  him,  and 
so  great  was  his  obedience  to  the  laws  of  his  Order, 
that  he  would  not  dine  even  with  the  Pope  until 
he  had  received  permission  from  his  Superior. 

In  the  National  Gallery  in  London  you  will  see 
a  pi(5lure  by  Fra  Angelico,  "  Christ  surrounded  by 
Angels,"  which  will  give  you  a  good  idea  of  his 
work.  You  see  there  a  picture  of  the  Risen  Lord, 
His  hand  uplifted  in  blessing,  the  flag  of  victory  in 
the  other.  Below  Him  real  Angelico  Angels  blow 
pasans  of  triumph  from  their  long  trumpets,  clash 
cymbals,  or  even  play  on  tiny  organs.  To  right  and 
left  of  this  central  subjed:  stretch  a  throng  of 
Patriarchs,  Saints,  and  Martyrs,  every  little  figure 
perfect  in  pure,  bright  colour,  exquisitely  finished. 
The  figures  are  all  heavily  draped ;  there  is  no 
knowledge  of  anatomy,  no  desire  for  reality.  The 
lesson  he  teaches  is  an  eternity  of  peace  and  holy 
joy,  where  the  armies  of  the  Blessed  One  cease 
from  combat,  and  hosts  of  Angels  with  wings  of 
purple  and  flame-colour  play  for  ever  on  psalteries 
and  cymbals.  Such  lessons  were  greatly  needed  in 
those  days  of  constant  warfare,  and  Fra  Angelico 
was  deeply  loved ;  he  died  at  Rome,  where  he  was 
painting  for  the  Pope,  and  there  he  was  buried  in 
a  tomb  with  the  epitaph,  "  He  gave  all  gains  to  the 
Children  of  Christ." 


i6 


jtSL 


CHAPTER  II 

The  fifteenth  century  was  in  Italy  a  period  of  great 
change  and  advancement ;  we  call  it  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance,  for,  out  of  the  darkness  and  struggle  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  knowledge  and  art  were  born 
anew  to  greater  glory,  and  more  perfedl  achieve- 
ment than  had  been  known  since  the  most  glorious 
days  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Such  an  awakening  did 
not  come  suddenly.  It  had  its  roots  in  the  endeav- 
ours of  those  who  in  the  Middle  Ages  were 
seekers  after  truth.  Dante  foreshadowed  such  an 
awakening  :  Giotto  worked  towards  it.  The  event 
which  more  than  any  other  helped  to  throw  open 
the  gates  of  knowledge,  was  the  capture  of  Con- 
stantinople by  the  Turks  in  1453,  when  the  treas- 
ures of  antiquity,  long  hoarded  within  its  walls, 
were  scattered  over  the  world.  This  new  learning, 
as  it  was  called,  was  in  reality  old  knowledge  re- 
vived. Men  threw  off  the  bonds  in  which  too 
narrow  traditions  and  beliefs  had  bound  them,  and 
rejoiced  in  the  free,  large,  adlive,  human  spirit  of 
Greek  and  Roman  art  and  literature. 

First  of  all  the  Italian  cities,  Florence  embraced 
the  new  learning.  Florence  was  a  republic,  but 
since  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,   her 

17  c 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

fortunes  had  depended  largely  on  one  great  family, 
the  Medici.  The  reigning  Medici  at  this  time,  most 
powerful  and  richest  of  his  race,  was  Cosimo,  whose 
name  we  must  remember  as  one  of  the  greatest 
patrons  of  art  the  world  has  ever  known.  He  was 
himself  a  financier,  a  musician,  learned  in  theology 
and  philosophy,  a  staunch  lover  of  painting,  sculp- 
ture, and  architecture. 


PiSANELLO  (1397-1455)- 

A  few  years  before  Cosimo  di  Medici,  an  artist 
was  born  near  the  Lake  of  Garda,  Pisanello  by 
name.  He  was  a  sculptor  too,  and  is  best  known 
by  his  beautiful  medals.  In  those  days  great  men 
and  members  of  their  family  had  medals  with  their 
portraits  struck  to  commemorate  events  in  their 
families.  These  are  often  very  perfe6t  works  of 
art,  and  it  is  from  them  that  we  know  the  faces 
of  the  famous  men  of  the  time.  Pisanello's  work 
in  marble  and  bronze  had  much  influence  on  his 
painting,  as  we  see  when  he  drew  knights  in 
armour,  for  the  armour  in  those  days  was  richly 
engraved  and  ornamented,  in  a  manner  reproduced 
by  his  skill  with  great  accuracy.  If  you  look  at  the 
illustration  by  him  of  the  two  Saints,  S.  Anthony 
and  S.  George,  you  will  see  how  finely  the  face 
of  the  latter  is  modelled,  as  though  it  had  been  cut 
for  a  medal.    His  shining  armour,  too,  is  beautifully 

18 


s.   antiiksv  AM)  ■'.  (;korc;k. 

{ .i/trr  llif  fiahitiiig  hy  Vi/torr  Pisano,  ralleii  PiantifUo,  «<««•  ni  thr 
Xittioiiiil  liallrry,  London.  \ 


PISANELLO 

drawn,  and  his  golden  sword  and  spurs  are  richly 
chased — all  details  loved  by  a  sculptor.  These  two 
Saints,  flicing  each  other  against  a  background  ol 
dark  fir-trees,  represent  the  two  sides  of  the  Chris- 
tian's life:  S.  Anthony  stands  for  prayer  and  medi- 
tation, S.  George  for  fighting  and  a(flion.  In 
S.  Anthony's  hand  you  notice  the  golden  bell  to 
frighten  away  the  evil  spirits,  and  his  pig  has  be- 
come a  legendary  animal  because,  we  are  told,  his 
followers  kept  pigs  with  which  to  feed  their  Order, 
and  their  pigs  were  allowed  to  stray  all  over  the 
country,  while  other  people's  pigs  were  locked  up 
if  they  were  found  out  of  their  own  homes.  The 
brave  knight,  S.  George,  is,  as  you  know,  the  Patron 
Saint  of  P^ngland.  He  comes  from  the  East,  where 
he  was  first  honoured,  but  the  Crusaders  adopted 
him  as  being  a  real  soldier-saint,  and  he  became  so 
popular  in  England  that,  when  our  Edward  III. 
built  a  chapel  for  his  castle  at  Windsor,  he  dedi- 
cated it  to  S.  George,  and  *'  Saint  George  for  Merry 
England "  became  the  battle-cry  of  the  English 
men-at-arms. 

Pisanello  was  famous,  too,  for  the  lively,  natural 
way  in  which  he  painted  animals — stags  and  horses, 
dogs  and  birds,  too,  as  Giotto  had  done.  In  his 
workshop  he  had  a  pupil,  whose  name  we  highly 
honour,  Paolo  Uccello. 


19 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

Paolo  Uccello  (i  397-1475). 

Paolo  Uccello  was  the  first  painter  to  learn 
the  laws  of  perspe(flive — that  is,  he  showed  how 
obje(5ls  could  be  drawn  as  they  really  look,  round, 
solid,  or  at  a  distance,  although  the  surface  upon 
which  they  had  to  be  drawn  is  in  every  case 
absolutely  flat.  Such  a  thing  had  never  been 
thought  of  before,  and  his  friends  considered  such 
study  waste  of  time  in  a  man  who  could  paint 
figures  and  animals  so  cleverly  that  he  was  called 
the  greatest  painter  since  the  days  of  Giotto.  But 
Paolo  Uccello  went  his  own  way.  He  did  not 
care  very  much  for  colour  even,  and  would  paint 
blue  fields  and  red  cities,  which  worried  his  critics 
sadly.  His  wife,  too,  would  rather  he  had  sold  his 
picflures  and  become  rich  and  famous  in  his  life- 
time, instead  of  sitting  up  all  night  working  to 
gain  more  knowledge  for  those  who  came  after 
him ;  but  when  she  scolded  him  he  would  say, 
"  What  a  delightful  thing  is  this  perspective  !"  and 
go  on  just  as  before. 

Paolo  Uccello  means  "  Paul  of  the  Birds," 
because,  though  he  painted  all  animals  well,  he 
liked  best  to  paint  all  manner  of  birds,  as  his  master 
Pisanello  had  done  before  him.  He  painted  fres- 
coes, too,  in  the  cloisters  of  Santa  Maria  Novella, 
and,  for  the  sake  of  the  animals,  he  chose  to  paint 
the    day   of   the    creation    of   the    animals    in    the 

20 


IiETAII.    IRONf    TIIK    VIRGIN    AM)    (  IIII.U. 
(fiy  I-'llit-po  Lift''  '■"  'he  Pitli  Gallery,  Florence.) 


PAOLO  UCCELLO 

Garden  of  Eden.  Like  Giotto,  too,  he  loved  to 
paint  landscape,  and  we  have  a  large  picture  by 
him  in  the  National  Gallery,  where  you  may  see  a 
good  example  of  this.  It  is  the  pidure  of  the  Battle 
of  San  Romano,  where,  in  the  background,  you  see 
the  country-side,  with  climbing  hills,  and  fields 
with  hedges  and  trees,  all  separated  from  the  fore- 
ground by  trellises  of  flowering  roses  and  orange- 
trees.  In  the  foreground  the  fight  is  marvellously 
well  represented ;  you  seem  to  hear  the  clash  of  the 
opposing  armies,  and  see  the  tossing  of  their  banners, 
while  he  has  placed  the  massive  horses  of  the 
warriors  in  various  difiicult  positions,  so  as  to  show 
how  well  he  had  mastered  the  new-found  laws  of 
perspe(flive. 

In  the  Cathedral  of  Florence  Uccello  made  an 
interesting  monument  in  memory  of  a  famous 
Englishman  who  died  about  that  time.  This  was 
Sir  John  Hawkwood,  a  gentleman  from  Essex,  who 
had  gained  great  renown  as  the  leader  of  a  band 
of  mercenaries — soldiers  who  fought  for  gold,  and 
were  hired  by  the  Princes  of  those  times  to  fight 
their  battles  for  them.  This  Hawkwood  was  a 
far-away  ancestor  of  our  poet  Shelley. 

When  we  consider  the  work  of  Paolo  Uccello 
we  find  ourselves  thinking  more  of  his  theories 
abcnit  painting  than  about  the  adual  pi(ftures  he 
painted;  but  we  do  right  to  honour  such  men 
highly,  for  they  build  houses  in  the  clouds  which 

21 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

other  men  inherit,  and  Hve  only  for  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge,  without  any  thought  of  selfish 
gain. 

Massaccio   (1401-1428). 

Another  man,  born  just  as  the  fifteenth  century 
was  beginning,  also  held  the  torch  of  learning  high, 
to  light  the  path  of  those  who  followed  him.  This 
was  the  artist  Massaccio.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
originality,  who  in  the  twenty-seven  short  years  of 
his  life  accomplished  a  great  deal,  and,  not  content 
with  copying  cleverly  those  who  had  gone  before 
him,  tried  to  see  things  for  himself,  and  by  his 
genius  was  able  to  put  what  he  saw  freshly  and 
convincingly  before  us.  His  real  name  was  Tom- 
maso,  but  because  he  cared  only  for  work  and 
not  at  all  for  money  nor  collecting  his  debts,  his 
friends  called  him  Massaccio,  or  "Careless  Thomas," 
and  that  is  the  name  by  which  he  is  always 
remembered. 

We  know  Massaccio  best  by  his  frescoes  in  the 
Carmine  Chapel  in  Florence,  and  by  studying  them 
we  discover  that  he  looked  at  the  subjects  of  his 
pidlures  very  differently  from  the  earlier  painters. 
When  they  wished  to  paint  Bible-stories,  they 
thought  first  how  best  to  make  the  story  clear  and 
interesting  to  the  people  who  came  to  worship  in 
the  churches ;  Massaccio  cared  most  to  draw  beau- 
tifully  the    human  form   and  to    place    the  figures 

22 


f 


MASSACCIO 

in  his  piiflures  so  as  to  show  their  beauty  of  line  to 
best  advantage.  There  is  a  fresco  of  Adam  and  Eve 
in  the  Carmine  which  shows  this  very  well.  Our 
first  parents  are  being  expelled  from  the  gardens  of 
Paradise  by  the  Angel  with  the  flaming  sword. 
Their  figures,  clad  only  in  vine-leaves,  are  drawn 
with  wonderful  truth  and  beauty.  Adam  is  covering 
his  face  with  his  hands  in  shame  and  misery  ;  Eve 
lifts  hers  despairingly  upwards,  and  her  lips  are 
parted  as  if  she  were  crying  aloud.  They  are  as 
alive  to  us  as  Milton's  Adam  and  Eve  in  "  Paradise 
Lost";  and  when  we  think  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  it  is  in  Milton's  words  and  by  the  light 
of  Massaccio's  pi(5ture  that  we  imagine  our  first 
parents. 

Many  years  after  Massaccio's  death,  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  an  artist  of  whom  you  will  hear  much 
later,  wrote  that  the  art  of  painting  declined  after 
Giotto's  death  until  the  days  of  Massaccio,  because 
people  were  content  to  copy  the  ideas  of  Giotto, 
and  lacked  invention,  till  Massaccio  "  showed 
them  by  his  perfe(5l  works  how  those  who  take  for 
their  standard  anyone  but  Nature  weary  themselves 
in  vain." 

Era  Filippo  Lippi  (1406-1469). 

We  do  not  know  for  certain  if  Massaccio,  this 
perfect  master,  had  any  pupils  during  his  lifetime. 
Era  Eilippo  may  have  learnt  from  him;  at  any  rate, 

23 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

he  knew  and  loved  his  work,  and  when  he  was  still 
young  and  at  school  he  used  to  spend  his  playhours 
looking  at  the  frescoes  in  the  Carmine  Chapel.  He 
had  been  early  left  an  orphan,  and  the  aunt  who 
had  charge  of  him  sent  him  to  the  Carmelites, 
where  he  became  a  friar.  But  he  only  cared  for 
painting,  and  became  so  discontented  that  he  ran 
away  from  the  convent  and  led,  as  we  are  told, 
an  adventurous  life  for  many  years,  being  even 
carried  away  prisoner  in  a  Moorish  ship,  as  some 
say.  However  that  may  be,  he  returned  at  last  to 
Florence,  and  was  made  chaplain  to  a  convent  of 
nuns  at  Prato,  close  by.  Here  he  painted  a  picture 
of  the  Virgin  for  the  high  altar  of  his  chapel,  and 
took  for  his  model  a  beautiful  novice  named 
Lucrezia,  with  whom  he  fell  in  love.  One  day, 
when  she  was  going  on  a  pilgrimage  to  a  neigh- 
bouring shrine,  he  persuaded  her  to  run  away  with 
him.  This,  of  course,  was  an  unpardonable  sin,  but 
the  mighty  Cosimo  di  Medici,  of  whom  I  have 
told  you,  on  account  of  Filippo's  great  talents, 
gained  a  pardon  for  him  from  the  Pope ;  but 
Lucrezia's  own  people  never  forgave  Fra  Filippo, 
and  when  he  died  suddenly,  the  Florentines  believed 
these  relations  had  caused  him  to  be  poisoned. 

Like  Massaccio,  Fra  Filippo  painted  many 
frescoes,  but  he  also  painted  pictures  on  panels,  one 
of  which  is  now  in  the  Academy  at  Florence,  the 
famous  "Coronation  of  the  Virgin."  This  charming 

24 


FRA  FILIPPO  LIPPI 

pi(5ture  is  full  of  lovely  colour,  crowded  with  grace- 
ful figures  of  blessed  spirits  and  angels  bearing  tall 
spikes  of  blossoming  lilies,  and  yet,  though  it  shows 
you  a  heavenly  scene,  it  does  not  make  you  think  of 
Heaven  ;  it  reminds  you  rather  of  happy  earthly 
scenes,  full  of  light,  and  joy,  and  tenderness.  You 
will  notice  that  Fra  Filippo  draws  all  his  people 
with  the  same  broad  foreheads,  short  faces,  and 
wide  jaws.  The  sweet-faced  Virgin  in  your  illustra- 
tion has  the  same  type  of  face.  Some  people  say  he 
drew  always  the  fice  of  his  wife,  for  whom  he  had 
sinned  and  suffered  so  much.  His  angels  have  the 
same  look,  too ;  they  are  not  heavenly  visitants,  but 
charming  boyish  creatures,  with  laughing,  human 
faces.  If  you  go  to  the  National  Gallery,  you  will 
see  all  these  things  for  yourselves  in  his  "  Annun- 
ciation "  there.  The  girlish  Virgin  sits  under  her 
beautiful  loggia,  her  little  face  with  its  broad  brows 
bending  meekly  to  the  Angel,  who  kneels  on  the 
flowery  grass  of  the  garden-close.  He  has  a  real 
boy's  face,  suddenly  grown  grave  with  the  mighty 
message ;  in  his  left  arm  he  bears  the  same  tall  spike 
of  blossoming  lilies.  More  lilies  grow  in  the  sculp- 
tured pot  between  them.  Behind  tlie  Virgin  is  her 
pretty  carved  bed;  through  an  open  door  you  can 
see  the  wooden  stairs  leading  to  an  upper  story — 
nothing  is  wanting  to  give  a  feeling  of  happy 
intimacy. 


25 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

Botticelli   (1447-1510). 

That  loftiness  of  imagination,  which  is  the  gift 
only  of  the  greatest  artists,  and  which  is  absent, 
perhaps,  from  the  work  of  Fra  Filippo,  we  find  in 
his  pupil,  Botticelli.  Sandro  Botticelli  was  not 
named  after  his  father,  but  after  his  first  teacher, 
a  goldsmith.  In  that  golden  age  all  the  arts  were 
equal  and  all  the  craftsmen  artists,  and  in  his  paint- 
ing we  see  how  much  young  Sandro  learnt  from 
his  pra(5lice  of  the  goldsmith's  art.  He  learnt  how 
to  use  gold  to  heighten  the  effed:  of  light  in  his 
women's  hair  and  draperies,  and  he  applies  it  to  his 
floating  scarves  and  other  delicate  fabrics  with 
special  grace  and  delicacy.  Under  Fra  Filippo  he 
learnt  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  and  his  fame 
became  known  even  outside  Florence.  The  Pope 
sent  for  him  to  go  to  Rome,  to  become  master  of 
the  works  in  his  new  Sistine  Chapel  in  the  Vatican. 
In  this  way  he  earned  much  money,  but  spent 
more,  and  returning  to  Florence,  he  fell  under  the 
influence  of  the  great  preaching  monk  Savonarola, 
of  whom  you  will  read  in  George  Eliot's  "  Romola." 
Savonarola  was  a  great  enemy  to  the  Renaissance; 
he  found  that  the  new  learning  and  the  love 
of  art  drew  men's  hearts  away  from  God,  and  he 
persuaded  his  disciples  by  his  eloquence  to  bring 
their  treasures  of  art  and  learning  to  be  burnt  in 
great  bonfires  which  he  had  kindled   in   the  square 

26 


BOTilCELLI 

before  the  cathedral  at  Florence.  In  obedience  to 
his  teaching  Botticelli  left  his  work,  and  grew  so 
poor  that  he  had  to  live  on  the  charity  of  Lorenzo 
di  Medici,  the  son  of  the  famous  Cosimo,  who, 
like  his  father,  was  a  munificent  patron  of  all 
artists.  Thus  living  in  obscurity,  Botticelli  died 
at  last,  peacefully,  in  his  own  city. 

Botticelli's  pictures  have  a  distinctive  grace,  which 
charms  the  eye  from  the  first  glance  ;  you  will  not 
need  to  be  told  to  care  for  them,  you  will  care 
without  in  the  beginning  knowing  your  reasons. 
Later  you  will  appreciate  his  clear,  pale  colouring 
and  the  way  his  piftures  are  designed,  making 
patterns  that  fill  delightfully  the  allotted  space; 
examined  more  closely,  you  will  find  in  them  a 
wealth  of  beautiful  detail  that  draws  you  on  to 
study  them  with  still  more  delighted  interest.  When 
some  day  you  are  shown  Chinese  and  Japanese 
pid:ures  you  will  admire  in  them  the  same  clearness 
of  colouring,  and  notice  how  their  figures,  too, 
form  a  kind  of  beautiful  pattern  against  a  flat  back- 
ground. 

Botticelli  was  a  child  of  the  Renaissance;  he 
loved  passionately  the  old  myths  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  painted  Venus  with  her  crown  of  roses 
as  often  as  the  Madonna  with  her  golden  halo.  He 
is  the  chief  of  all  great  poet-painters,  and  the  stories 
he  paints  for  us  become  real  to  us  in  the  splendour 
of  his  imagination.  Two  of  his  most  famous  pictures 

27 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

are  in  Florence,  the  "Birth  of  Venus"  and  the 
"  Masque  of  Spring."  In  the  first,  Venus  stands  in 
her  shell,  floating  forward  on  a  rippled  sea;  on  each 
wavelet  is  a  flat  pale  rose.  Botticelli's  roses  seem  to 
belong  to  him  as  tall  Virgin-lilies  to  Fra  Filippo. 
The  paint  is  thin  and  pure  in  colour.  The  face  of 
Venus  is  wistful,  her  hair  of  pale  gold  floats  in  the 
light  breeze.  We  know  it  must  have  been  in  just 
such  a  light  and  from  just  such  a  sea  that  the 
Mother  of  Lov^e  would  be  born.  In  the  second 
pidlure,  the  design  is  fuller  and  more  complicated. 
The  masque  is  full  of  figures,  circling  round  the 
central  point  of  the  whole  pi<flure — a  Florentine 
lady,  Smeralda  Bandinelli,  in  her  flowery  dress,  the 
lady  of  the  festival.  In  her  honour  myriad  flowers 
are  springing,  winds  in  the  form  of  stalwart  youths 
are  blowing  soft  breezes,  the  months,  as  maidens,  are 
dancing  hand  in  hand,  and  all  is  fun  and  jollity, 
a  world  of  loveliness  set  against  a  background  of 
dark  trees.  In  the  National  Gallery  is  one  of 
Botticelli's  mythological  piiftures,  Mars  and  Venus 
resting,  while  young  satyrs,  horned  and  hoofed,  play 
with  the  war-god's  cast-off  helmet.  Venus  has  a 
great  look  of  Smeralda  herself;  she  leans  quietly  on 
a  soft  rose-coloured  cushion.  An  impish  satyr  blows 
through  a  conch-shell  into  the  sleeper's  ear,  but  does 
not  waken  the  god.  Behind  them  is  an  olive-grove, 
and  in  the  distance  hills  softly  outlined. 

There  is  also  an  example  in  the  National  Gallery 

28 


1  111.    \  lKi.;\    AMi    I  Hll.l'. 
(Afirr  thr  (hunting  hy  RotfUrlli.  ii<nv  in  Ihf  Miinf,-  Pinitii  Prtzoli  at  A/i/.m 


O  ■■  THE 


BOTTICELLI 

of  a  Nativity  by  Botticelli,  painted,  as  an  inscrip- 
tion in  Greek  tells  us,  after  Savonarola's  death,  when 
as  you  know  he  had  renounced  painting  secular 
picftures.  Under  a  thatched  penthouse  is  the  Virgin, 
kneeling.  The  Holy  Child  lies  propped  up  against 
a  saddle,  and  points  with  His  small  finger  to  His 
mouth,  symbolizing  thus  that  He  is  the  Word  of 
God.  In  the  foreground,  on  the  roof,  up  in  the  air, 
Angels  sing  or  kneel  or  float  joyously,  all  expressing 
in  an  ecstasy  of  delight  their  marvel  at  the  good 
tidings  they  are  bringing  to  mankind.  Most  lovely 
of  all  is  the  group  of  Angels  floating  in  the  sky  ; 
they  sway  with  a  kind  of  passionate  violence  and 
joy  in  movement  of  which  Botticelli  has  the  secret, 
and  as  they  float,  they  sing,  and  the  air  seems  alive 
with  their  song. 

Our  illustration  is  from  one  of  Botticelli's  rapt 
Virgins  with  her  Child,  showing  the  depth  of  his 
religious  feelings.  You  must  notice  the  delicate 
work  lavished  on  the  two  haloes,  reminding  us  of 
his  goldsmith's  days,  and  the  fine  pleats  of  the 
Madonna's  veil,  with  all  the  charming,  interesting 
detail  in  the  binding  of  the  books  on  the  table,  the 
bowl  and  heaped-up  fruit.  On  the  Mother's  face  is 
a  look  of  sorrowful  tenderness,  while  the  Babe 
holds  in  His  left  hand  the  three  nails  and  the  little 
crown  of  thorns,  symbols  of  His  Passion. 


29 


ITALY  AND   HER  PAINTERS 

PlERO    DELLA    FrANCESCA  (1416-I492). 

Piero  della  Francesca  is  conned:ed,  not  with 
Fra  Filippo,  nor  with  Botticelh,  but  with  Paolo 
Uccello,  the  first  master  of 'perspecflive.  Piero  was 
called  Francesca  after  his  mother,  who  brought 
him  up  herself,  and  taught  him  all  she  knew^ 
He  was  a  painter  of  frescoes  and  decorated  chapels 
and  palaces,  particularly  those  for  the  Chapel  of 
the  Malatestas  at  Rimini.  But  we  remember  him 
best  by  his  portraits.  Hitherto,  portraits  had  been 
painted  only  as  incidents  in  pictures :  sometimes 
the  donor  and  his  wife,  or  the  donor  and  his  patron 
saint,  stood  or  knelt  on  each  side  of  an  altar-piece; 
or  portraits  w^ere  introduced  among  the  spe6tators 
in  some  sacred  scene.  Piero  painted  piCliures  of 
living  people,  and  in  your  illustration  you  see  the 
portrait  of  Frederigo  di  Montefeltro,  Duke  of 
Urbino,  one  of  his  patrons,  and  the  grandfather  of 
Michelangelo's  friend,  Vittoria  Colonna.  You  must 
notice  the  fine  modelling  of  his  face  and  the  beau- 
tiful persped:ive  of  the  background  with  the  white- 
sailed  fishing-boats  on  the  wide  river,  and  the  faint 
blue  mountains  outlined  in  the  far  distance. 

In  the  National  Gallery  are  two  portraits  of 
women,  one  of  which  is  certainly  by  Piero.  This 
is  the  picture  of  Isotta  da  Rimini,  a  lady  celebrated 
for  her  intellc(5t  and  beauty.  To  us,  perhaps,  her 
beauty  is  less  apparent,  and  the  very  high  forehead 

30 


Kki.i>i;Kii;o  r>i  montkfki.tko.   im  kk  mi    rKiu>M. 


m 


W 


PIERO  DELLA   FRANCESCA 

looks  disagreeably  bare  and  bald.  But  that  was  a 
much-esteemed  charm  in  Piero's  time,  and  if  a 
woman's  hair  grew  low  on  her  forehead,  it  was 
shaved  away  to  give  her  the  fashionable  high 
brow. 

You  may  see,  too,  in  the  National  Gallery  a 
lovely  Nativity  by  Piero,  unfinished  and  rather 
brown  in  colour,  but  original  and  full  of  interest  ; 
in  design  reminding  us  of  the  Botticelli  Nativity 
with  the  penthouse  for  stable,  and  a  choir  of 
singing  Angels,  opening  wide  their  sweet,  round 
mouths,  and  holding  instruments  of  music  in  their 
hands. 

In  his  old  age,  that  saddest  of  all  fates  for  an 
artist  befell  Piero  ;  he  grew  blind,  and  died  at  a 
good  old  age  in  the  little  town  of  Borgo  San 
Sepolcro,  where  he  was  born. 


31 


CHAPTER  III 

Leonardo  da  Vinci  (1452-1519). 

From  his  youth,  Leonardo  was  beautiful  to  look 
upon,  and  the  chroniclers  of  his  time  describe  him  so 
vividly  that  we  seem  to  see  him  standing  before  us : 
"  He  was  of  a  fine  person,  well-proportioned,  full  of 
grace,  and  of  a  beautiful  asped:.  He  wore  a  rose- 
coloured  tunic,  short  to  the  knee,  although  long  gar- 
ments were  then  in  use.  He  had,  reaching  down  to 
the  middle  of  his  breast,  a  fine  beard,  curled  and 
well  kept."  His  beauty  was  equalled  by  his  intel- 
le(5l,  which  enabled  him  to  do  well  whatever  he  put 
his  hand  to  do.  He  was  born  in  the  little  castellated 
town  of  Vinci  on  the  slopes  of  Mount  Albano, 
twenty  miles  from  Florence.  His  master  was 
Verrocchio,  an  artist  who  had  won  this  name,  *'  The 
True-Eyed  One,"  by  his  surprising  mastery  of  many 
arts.  Those  who  knew  him  said  he  was  famous  as  a 
goldsmith,  a  master  of  perspe(5tive,  a  sculptor,  in- 
layer  of  woods,  painter,  and  musician.  Leonardo 
probably  began  his  life  as  an  apprentice  when  he 
was  only  twelve  years  old,  and  about  that  tinic  he 
would  have  seen  many  fine  works  that  Verrocchio 
was  designing — the  great  ball  of  gilded  copper  for 
tl-c  dome  of  the  cathedral,  the  magnificent  Medici 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 

tomb  in  the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo,  and  the  bronze 
statue  ot  David,  all  of  which  are  still  to  be  seen  in 
Florence  to  this  day. 

As  time  went  on,  Leonardo  surpassed  his  master, 
and  showed  himself  almost  as  a  wonder-working 
magician  ;  he  was  at  the  same  time  painter, 
poet,  sculptor,  archited:,  engineer,  mathematician, 
and  philosopher.  He  studied  botany  and  anatomy  ; 
he  loved  music  and  played  his  own  songs  on  the 
lute,  or  on  instruments  which  he  himself  invented. 
He  made  models  of  mills  and  presses,  levers 
and  cranes,  pumps  for  drawing  water,  diving-  and 
riying-machines.  He  drew  thousands  of  designs 
for  such  things,  and  kept  them  in  little  leather- 
bound  notebooks,  which  he  stuck  in  his  belt.  I 
have  held  one  of  these  precious  notebooks  in  my 
hand,  and  as  I  turned  the  pages,  the  ceaseless  work 
of  his  a(5tive  brain  lay  there,  preserved  after  all 
these  centuries  in  his  tinv,  clear  drawings,  all  care- 
fully finished  and  accurate,  ready  to  be  used.  Other 
books  he  kept,  in  which  he  noted  everything  that 
had  struck  him  as  he  walked  through  the  busy 
streets — the  twist  of  a  woman's  hair  as  it  curled 
round  her  head,  the  huge,  misshapen  nose  of  some 
ugly  fellow  who  had  passed  him  in  his  walk,  or 
the  grotesque,  toothless  chin  of  some  aged  hag. 

His  fame  grew  rapidly,  and  when  Ludovico 
Sforza  became  Duke  of  Milan,  he  sent  to  Florence 
for  Leonardo,  who  alone  of  all  the  artists  of  the  day 

33  D 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

could  bring  honour  to  the  court  of  the  new  Duke, 
by  designing  scenery  and  planning  masques  for  the 
great  court  festivals.  It  was  here  in  Milan  that  he 
painted  his  famous  "  Last  Supper  "  for  the  refedlory 
of  the  Convent  of  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie.  This 
wall-painting  still  exists,  but  so  defaced  by  time 
that  we  imagine  more  than  we  see  of  its  vanished 
beauty.  But  if  you  are  in  London  and  go  to  the 
Diploma  Gallery  in  Burlington  House,  you  can  see 
a  very  early  copy  of  it  by  an  artist  named  Marco 
da  Oggionno,  which  gives  you  a  good  idea  of  its 
majestic  beauty,  and  makes  you  understand  how 
highly  men  praised  it  in  Leonardo's  own  day,  and 
how  even  the  King  of  France  sent  to  Milan  to  see 
if  it  could  not  be  transferred  from  the  refectory 
walls  to  his  own  palace. 

Leonardo's  stay  in  Milan  was  brought  to  an  end 
by  the  fall  of  his  patron,  the  Duke,  but,  full  of 
courage,  he  set  out  for  Venice,  visiting  the  court  of 
Mantua  by  the  way.  There  he  was  asked  to  paint 
the  portrait  of  the  beautiful  Isabella  d'Este,  and  he 
did  make  a  drawing  of  her  which  was  said  to  be  mar- 
vellously like  ;  this  drawing  is  still  at  the  Louvre,  but, 
as  far  as  we  know,  the  portrait  was  never  painted. 
From  Venice  Leonardo  returned  to  Florence,  and 
we  possess  in  the  Diploma  Gallery  the  splendid 
cartoon  which  he  then  drew  for  a  picfture  :  the 
Virgin  with  S.  Anne  and  the  Holy  Child.  It  is  one 
of  the   most  perfect   drawings  in   the  world.  The 

3+ 


LEONARDO  DA   VINCI 

Virgin  sits  on  the  knees  of  her  mother,  half-Hsten- 
ing  to  her,  half-looking  with  absorbed,  smiling  lips 
at  her  Child,  who  lifts  His  baby  fingers  in  blessing, 
while  the  little  S.  John  regards  Him  wonderingly. 

About  this  time  a  new  patron  sought  Leonardo 
out,  Cirsar  Borgia,  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
figures  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Renaissance.  In 
a  series  of  brilliant  campaigns,  lasting  only  four 
years,  he  had  mastered  a  great  part  of  Italy,  and  was 
disputing  supreme  power  with  the  Pope  himself 
when  he  fell  fighting  at  Mendavia.  Ca3sar  Borgia 
secured  the  services  of  Leonardo  as  military  archi- 
te6t,  and  in  one  of  the  painter's  little  notebooks  we 
read,  hurriedly  scribbled  before  some  journey  under- 
taken for  his  master,  little  memoranda,  strange 
tokensof  the  preoccupation  of  the  moment:  "  Riding- 
boots — Boxes  in  custom-house — Ask  for  travelling- 
bags — Frame  of  eyeglass."  We  seem  to  see  another 
Leonardo  here,  keen,  alert,  booted  and  spurred, 
ready  for  action. 

Perhaps  the  best  known  of  Leonardo's  piftures  is 
the  "  Monna  Lisa  "  of  the  Louvre,  recently  stolen 
bv  an  Italian  workman  from  the  Gallery,  and  found 
alter  many  months  in  Florence.  We  are  told  that 
Leonardo  lingered  with  great  love  over  the  painting 
of  this  portrait,  unwilling  to  pronounce  it  finished, 
and  while  the  lady  sat  to  him  in  all  her  mysterious 
loveliness,  he  gave  orders  that  musicians  should 
constantly   play,  so   that    her   lips   should   for   ever 

35 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

smile,  as  at  harmonious  melodies.  Monna  Lisa  was 
herself  a  noble  Neapolitan  lady,  the  third  wife  of  a 
Florentine  gentleman,  Francesco  del  Giocondo. 
We  have  two  other  pictures  by  Leonardo  in  the 
Louvre,  one  the  portrait  of  Lucrezia  Crivelli,  always 
called  the  *' Belle  Ferronniere, "known  by  the  jewelled 
band  worn  across  her  forehead;  the  other  the  young 
John  Baptist,  the  beautiful  youth,  with  the  incom- 
prehensible smile  and  the  uplifted  finger. 

Leonardo  went  also  to  Rome  to  work  for  the 
Pope  Leo  X.,  and  for  him  and  other  patrons  he  was 
used  to  make  all  kinds  of  curious  toys — lizards  that 
could  move,  mirrors,  transparencies ;  there  was  no 
end  to  his  invention.  He  occupied  himself  also  in 
seeking  out  the  strangest  methods  of  preparing  oil 
for  painting  and  varnish  for  preserving  his  pic- 
tures. He  is  said  to  have  made  little  pictures,  too, 
of  great  beauty,  and  to  have  begun  many  things 
that  were  never  finished,  in  his  ardour  always  to 
plan  some  new  device. 

The  King  of  France  at  this  time  was  Francois  I., 
a  great  lover  of  the  arts,  who  had  bought  "  Monna 
Lisa "  for  his  own  royal  colledion.  He  invited 
Leonardo  to  come  to  him  to  France,  and  the  painter 
at  last  consented,  in  the  year  15 16,  urged  partly 
by  quarrels  with  Michelangelo,  who  had  grown 
jealous  of  his  fame,  and  partly  because  he  was  by 
now  without  a  patron  in  Italy. 

In    France    Leonardo    was    treated    with    great 

36 


f 
i 


Jrt 


TiiK  m..\i>  HI    I  iikiM. 

( .  \/lf>-  till'  fiitioon  l>\  l.litnarJu  da  \'inn\  mtv  in  tlw  /irrni  at  Afi7aii.) 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 

honour :  he  was  given  a  yearly  pension  and  a 
chateau  near  Aniboise  on  the  Loire  to  Hve'  in. 
Whilst  there  he  was  visited  by  the  Cardinal  of 
Aragon,  who  has  described  his  travels  in  a  manu- 
script which  we  still  possess.  In  it  he  says  Leonardo 
showed  him  three  piftures,  "one  of  a  certain  Floren- 
tine lady  done  from  the  life  ;  the  other  of  S.  John 
the  Baptist  as  a  young  man;  and  one  of  the  Madonna 
and  the  Child,  which  are  placed  in  the  lap  of  S.Anne; 
and  all  of  them  most  perfect."  These  two  last 
pi(5lures  are  in  the  Louvre  to  this  day  ;  but  we  do 
not  know  for  certain  which  is  the  portrait  of  the 
Florentine  lady. 

Leonardo  died  in  May,  15 19;  tradition  says,  in 
the  arms  of  King  Fran9ois.  All  who  knew  him 
mourned  at  his  death,  and  the  old  chroniclers  never 
weary  of  describing  his  excellencies — his  enduring 
beauty ;  his  bodily  strength,  so  great  that  he  could 
twist  a  horseshoe  as  if  it  had  been  lead;  his  liberality  ; 
the  glory  of  his  painting  and  of  his  statuary,  both 
of  men  and  of  horses. 

Our  illustration  is  a  very  interesting  one.  Leo- 
nardo was  once  asked  to  paint  an  altar-piece  for  the 
chapel  of  a  convent ;  but  before  it  was  finished  the 
monks  demurred  at  the  price  he  demanded.  He 
therefore  kept  back  the  picture,  sold  it  as  he  wished, 
and  the  famous  "  Virgin  of  the  Rocks,"  now  in 
the  Louvre,  is  the  very  pi(!:ture  planned  for  the 
convent  walls.   At  the  same  time,  however,  a  copy 

37 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

of  Leonardo's  pi(5ture  was  made,  under  his  super- 
vision, by  a  contemporary  artist  named  De  Predis, 
who  also  painted  the  wings  for  the  altar-piece,  as 
they  had  been  originally  designed.  The  whole 
altar-piece  complete  with  its  wings  has  now  been 
hung  in  the  National  Gallery,  and  our  illustration 
is  taken  from  this  most  accurate  copy  by  De  Predis. 
The  picture  will  repay  the  most  careful  study,  both 
for  its  effedl  of  subdued  light  and  shade  and  for  the 
extraordinary  grey  tones  of  the  figures,  seated  so 
mysteriously  in  the  midst  of  the  rocky  landscape. 

Michelangelo   (1474-1563) 

The  old  chroniclers  tell  us  that  Michelangelo 
was  born  under  a  lucky  star,  but  when  we  read  his 
life  we  see  it  rugged  and  hard,  and  the  flame  of 
his  genius  burning  brightly  in  the  midst  ot  dark, 
incessant  toil.  No  other  artist  of  equal  genius  had 
lived  before  him,  with  the  exception  perhaps  of 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  the  difference  between  the 
two  men  was  fundamental.  Both  were  citizens  of 
Florence,  yet  Leonardo  treated  the  Florentines  with 
smiling  indifference,  and  Michelangelo  was  never 
happy  away  from  his  native  city.  He  was  proud 
of  his  blood  and  of  the  race  to  which  he  belonged, 
far  prouder  than  of  his  genius.  He  disliked  being 
called  an  artist,  and  he  loved  his  family  with  an 
almost  religious  fervour.      His  father  was  a  man  of 

38 


MICHELANGELO 

good,  though  not  noble  birth,  and  he  owned  land  at 
Settignano,  a  vine-clad  hill  above  Florence.  As  a 
child  Michelangelo  was  put  out  to  be  nursed  by  the 
wife  of  a  stone-cutter  who  worked  in  the  quarries 
there ;  he  used  to  say  that  this  accounted  for  his 
love  of  chisel  and  hammer.  For  he  worked  in 
marble  as  well  as  in  paint,  and  it  is  said  of  him  that 
he  would  willingly  have  taken  the  mountains  them- 
selves as  material  for  his  mighty  chisel.  He  would 
never  be  content  to  have  his  blocks  chosen  for 
him,  but  would  waste  months  up  in  the  mountains 
selecting  them  for  himself.  He  lived  always  with 
great  frugality,  denying  himself  every  luxury,  in 
order,  with  his  riches,  to  help  his  family,  who  were 
greedy  and  preyed  upon  him.  His  health  was  bad 
throughout  his  long  life,  and  he  was  of  a  suspicious 
charadier,  fearing  to  trust  even  his  friends.  His 
energy  of  mind  was  so  great  that  it  devoured  him 
and  separated  him  from  the  society  of  his  equals. 
He  was  often  hated  for  his  arrogance,  but  in  his  old 
age  he  was  respe(5ted  for  his  genius,  and  became  the 
acknowledged  leader  amongst  all  the  artists  and 
thinkers  of  his  time.  His  genius  was  many-sided 
too  :  he  wrote  sonnets,  designed  as  an  architect, 
loved  the  exacff  sciences,  and  was  esteemed  by  all  as 
a  man  of  lofty  and  high  charad:er.  But  in  spite 
of  these  gifts  he  was  deeply  sad,  swayed  backwards 
and  forwards  by  painful  doubts,  over-conscientious, 
and,  though  he  terrified  even  the  mighty  Popes  for 

39 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

whom  he  worked,  he  himself  lived  always  under  the 
shadow^  of  fear.  Like  Leonardo,  he  was  a  capable 
engineer,  and  he  was  at  one  time  Surveyor  of  the 
Fortifications  at  Florence. 

In  person,  he  was  a  man  of  middle  height,  with 
wide  shoulders,  rounded  with  labour.  His  torehead 
was  square  and  lined  with  thought ;  his  hair  was 
thin,  black  and  curly;  his  eyes  were  small  and  very 
sad.  His  nose  was  broken  early  in  life  by  a  fellow- 
artist,  Torrigiano,  who,  after  serving  as  a  hired 
soldier,  left  Italy  and  sought  work  in  England. 
This  was  our  gain,  for  Torrigiano  was  employed  by 
the  young  King  Henry  VIH.  to  build  the  beautiful 
tomb  of  Henry  VIL,  still  to  be  admired  in  West- 
minster Abbey. 

Michelangelo  lived  for  ninety  years,  toiling  cease- 
lessly, yet  leaving  comparatively  few  finished  works 
behind  him;  neither  the  tomb  of  Julius  H.  nor  the 
Chapel  of  the  Medici,  his  two  greatest  monuments, 
were  completed  at  his  death.  In  his  old  age,  the 
glad  time  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy  was  over 
too,  and  he  lived  to  see  his  country  in  slavery  and 
delivered  over  to  strangers. 

At  thirteen  Michelangelo  began  work  in  the 
studio  of  Ghirlandajo  (1449-1494),  the  "Garland- 
maker  " — so  called  because  he  wTought  garlands  in 
gold  and  silver  as  his  first  trade — one  of  the  great 
painters  of  Florence,  whose  pictures  are  chiefly  to 
be  studied  in  his  own  city. 

40 


MICHELANGELO 

Michelangelo  was  next  transferred  to  the  School 
tor  Sculptors,  kept  up  by  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  in  the 
gardens  of  San  Marco.  Here,  in  this  atmosphere 
of  wide  learning  and  devotion  to  ancient  standards, 
everything  seemed  favourable  to  his  development  as 
a  great  classic  sculptor,  but  when  he  was  still  very 
young,  Savonarola,  then  a  man  of  about  forty,  began 
to  preach  in  Florence,  and  at  first  it  looked  as  it 
Michelangelo  would  be  as  deeply  affeded  by  the 
preaching  of  this  passionate  monk  as  Botticelli  had 
been.  But  the  effed:  was  not  lasting  ;  the  young 
sculptor  tied,  conscience-stricken,  to  Venice,  and 
then  at  Bologna  he  consoled  himself  by  reading  the 
poetry  of  Petrarch,  Boccaccio's  stories,  and  the  great 
drama  of  Dante.  Finally  he  came  to  Rome,  and 
there  freed  himself  by  hard  work  from  the  last 
paintul  impressions  of  Savonarola's  teaching. 

The  unfinished  picture  of  the  Entombment  In 
the  National  Gallery  was  probably  painted  by 
Michelangelo  while  he  was  at  Bologna.  You  may 
perhaps  be  disappointed  when  you  first  look  at  this 
pid:ure,  and  miss  the  beauty  of  colour  to  which  you 
have  become  accustomed.  But  if  you  are  patient, 
you  will  end  by  seeing  a  new  beauty  of  line  in  this 
half-naked  Christ,  sustained  by  two  Angels,  and  In 
His  Mother,  her  face  convulsed  with  suffering, 
sitting  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  her  arms  wide- 
stretched  to  Heaven.  You  will  see,  too,  that  the 
supreme  excellence  of  his  work  lies  in  his  mastery 

41 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

of  the  whole  anatomy  of  the  human  body  rather 
than  in  his  colour.  There  is  in  the  Diploma  Gallery 
another  early  example  of  his  work,  a  sculptured 
bas-relief  of  the  Virgin  and  Child.  You  may  see  it 
when  you  go  to  look  at  Leonardo's  Virgin  on  the 
knees  of  S.  Anne,  and,  standing  in  front  of  them, 
you  may  well  be  grateful  for  such  beauty  ;  less  fortu- 
nate people  would  cross  stormy  seas  and  undertake 
perilous  journeys  to  find  two  such  masterpieces. 

In  all  Michelangelo's  work  an  air  ot  almost  pagan 
liberty  seems  to  reign,  yet  through  it  runs  a  deep 
note  of  sadness.  His  young  men  have  a  look  ot 
immortal  youth,  but  on  their  faces  is  the  severity  of 
manhood ;  his  women  are  goddesses  in  form,  yet 
they  brood  with  a  kind  of  tender  melancholy,  as 
you  see  in  one  of  his  greatest  works,  the  ceiling  of 
the  Sistine  Chapel  in  Rome,  decorated  by  him  at 
the  wish  of  Julius  II.,  Raphael's  patron.  This  ceil- 
ing we  can  still  see  to-day,  and  we  can  never 
sufficiently  wonder  at  its  perfe6tions.  It  is  divided 
into  nine  pi(flures,  illustrating  subje6ts  from  the  Old 
Testament;  in  the  niches  between,  sit  seven  Prophets 
and  five  Sibyls,  grand  brooding  figures,  foretelling 
the  birth  of  the  Messiah.  One  of  the  most  moving 
of  the  pictures  is  the  "Creation  of  Adam,"  who  lies 
in  youthful  beauty,  languidly,  on  the  hill-side,  just 
touched  into  life  by  the  Finger  of  God  the  Father, 
on  Whose  other  side  you  see  Eve,  with  innocent 
face  and  soft  round  eyes  of  wonder.     In  the  pidiure 

42 


MICHELANGELO 

oF  the  Expulsion  of  our  tirst  parents  from  Paradise 
you  will  be  reminded  of  the  Massaccio  fresco  on 
the  same  subjed:,  which  Michelangelo  had  studied 
in  Florence  as  a  boy.  It  is  difficult  to  look  long  at 
these  pictures  because  of  the  great  height  of  the 
ceiling;  but  when  you  strain  your  eyes  to  see  them, 
think  with  how  much  more  discomfort  they  must 
have  been  painted.  Michelangelo  was  four  years 
at  work  on  them,  four  sombre,  terrible  years,  fighting 
against  constant  fatigue,  damp  walls,  and  pra<5lical 
difficulties  of  all  kinds,  including  money  troubles  to 
satisfy  the  greed  of  his  family. 

The  chapel  was  thrown  open  to  the  public  on 
All  Saints'  Day,  151 2,  and  the  people  applauded 
loudly  this  marvellous  work,  "full  of  the  Spirit  ot 
God,  Who  knows  how  to  slay  and  how  to  make 
alive."  But  the  incessant  labour  had  told  on 
Michelangelo's  health  ;  he  writes  of  himself,  "  My 
mind  is  as  stupefied  as  my  body."  He  turned  for 
consolation  to  new  work,  and  attempted  to  finish 
the  tomb  of  Julius  II.  ;  the  colossal  statue  of  Moses 
now  in  Rome  is  the  best  fragment  of  the  tomb 
left  to  us.  But  he  was  soon  interrupted  by  the 
new  Pope,  Leo  X.,  who,  though  he  was  unable  to 
grasp  the  sad  genius  of  Michelangelo,  and  reserved 
all  his  favours  for  Raphael,  could  not  afford  to 
negle6f  the  sculptor's  claims,  and  insisted  on  his 
going  to  Florence  to  rebuild  the  fa9ade  of  the 
church    of    his     Medici    ancestors,    San     Lorenzo. 

43 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

The  two  did  not,  however,  work  well  together, 
and  the  next  eight  years  were  full  of  trouble, 
quarrelling,  and  wasted  effort  for  Michelangelo. 
Many  tragic  events  were  happening  in  his  land ; 
Rome  was  sacked  by  mercenaries,  and  the  Medici, 
who  had  always  befriended  him,  were  banished 
from  Florence.  Another  Pope,  Clement  VII.,  him- 
self one  of  the  Medici,  ordered  him  to  design  a 
monument  in  their  honour  in  the  new  sacristy  of 
the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo.  This  great  tomb  was 
not  finished  till  1545,  and  you  can  still  see  it  with 
the  two  solemn  figures  of  the  Medici,  armed  as 
warriors  of  ancient  Rome,  and  the  lovely  reclining 
forms,  representing,  so  they  say.  Dawn  and  Twi- 
light, Morning  and  Night. 

For  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life  Michelangelo 
lived  continuously  in  Rome,  years  sad  on  the 
whole,  but  cheered  by  the  friendship  of  a  lady, 
Vittoria  Colonna,  the  granddaughter  of  that  Duke 
of  Urbino  whom  Picro  della  Francesca  painted, 
and  belonging,  through  him,  to  one  of  the  noblest 
families  in  Italy,  in  whom  the  very  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance  dwelt.  Her  society  was,  till  the  time 
of  her  death,  his  great  consolation  ;  she  inspired 
his  finest  sonnets,  she  turned  his  thoughts  back  to 
holy  things,  for  the  tumult  of  Luther's  teaching 
had  by  this  time  reached  Italy  and  was  stirring  up 
men's  minds  to  withstand  his  doctrines  by  believing 
with  greater  stri6fness  those  of  the  Catholic  faith. 

44 


MICHELANGELO 

It  is  strange  to  think  of  Michelangelo,  with  his 
rough,  domineering  manners,  living  constantly  in 
such  surroundings,  but  another  of  his  friends,  Donna 
Argentina  Malaspina,  wrote  of  him  :  '*  When  he 
liked,  he  could  be  a  gentleman  of  fine  and  seductive 
manners,  equalled  by  none  in  Europe."  Europe, 
indeed,  delighted  to  do  him  honour.  Fran9ois  I. 
and  Catherine  de'  Medici  in  France  tried  to  gain 
him  to  work  for  them  ;  Cosimo  de'  Medici  made 
him  sit  down  by  his  side  ;  and  the  young  Francesco, 
Cosimo's  son,  received  him  cap  in  hand. 

And  still  the  old  man  lived  on,  lived  even  to  wel- 
come Titian  when  he  visited  Rome  in  1 545,  perhaps 
at  his  own  quiet  home  near  the  Forum  of  Trajan, 
where  he  loved  to  work  far  into  the  night,  a  card- 
board helmet  of  his  own  invention  on  his  head, 
into  which  he  used  to  stick  his  lighted  candle. 
We  are  told  that  one  day  a  friend  sent  his  servant 
with  forty  pounds  of  candles  as  a  present  for  this 
night-work.  Michelangelo  hated  to  receive  gifts 
of  any  kind,  and  told  the  man  roughly  to  return 
them  to  his  master.  The  servant,  wishing  to  get 
rid  of  his  load,  said  :  "  Rather  than  do  that  I  will 
set  light  to  them  all  here  in  your  garden,"  and 
began  to  undo  the  parcel.  The  idea  of  such 
wastefulness  conquered  the  old  man's  pride,  and  he 
accepted  the  gift. 

Every  day  he  rode  in  the  Campagna,  and  he, 
who  had  never  cared  much  for  nature,  grew  to  love 

45 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

the  calm  of  the  autumn  woods.  Once  even,  when 
he  had  been  forced  to  fly  from  Rome  by  the 
threatened  invasion  of  the  Spanish  troops,  he  wrote 
on  his  return  :  "  I  have  left  the  best  part  of  myself 
there,  for,  in  truth,  peace  is  to  be  found  nowhere 
but  in  forests." 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  differently  his  contem- 
poraries felt  about  nature.  Leonardo,  Perugino, 
Raphael,  and  Titian  all  observed  natural  scenery 
closely,  and  their  finest  pictures  have  often  beautiful 
landscapes  for  their  backgrounds.  Michelangelo 
made  no  use  of  such  backgrounds,  and  despised 
especially  the  landscapes  of  the  Flemish  painters — 
"  Odds  and  ends  of  ruined  cottages,"  he  wrote, 
"  green  fields  shaded  by  trees,  rivers  and  bridges, 
lots  of  little  figures  dotted  about — they  call  that 
landscape." 

Up  to  the  last  Michelangelo  stood  all  day  at  his 
work.  Put  in  the  February  of  his  ninetieth 
year  he  fell  ill  with  a  fever.  He  tried  to  ride  out 
as  usual,  but  the  weather  was  cold,  and  he  himself 
so  weak  that  he  was  forced  to  return  to  his  own  fire- 
side. There,  on  February  i8,  a  Friday,  about  five 
in  the  afternoon,  just  as  daylight  was  fading,  he  died. 
"His  proud  spirit  had  escaped  the  tyranny  of  Time 
and  entered  the  Kingdom  of  Eternity." 

Artists  throughout  all  times  have  honoured  his 
great  name.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  wrote  of  him  that 
it   would   be  glory  and  distin(5lion  enough  for  any 

46 


MICHELANGELO 

artist  to  kiss  the  hem  ot"  his  garment.  And  it  is 
in  just  such  an  attitude  only  that  he  can  be 
approached  by  any  of  us  ;  patience  and  humiHty 
must  teach  us  to  know  him,  for,  as  he  himself  has 
written  :  "  Good  painting  is  a  music  and  a  melody 
which  only  intelledt  can  appreciate,  and  with  great 
difficulty." 


47 


CHAPTER   IV 

Perugino  (1446-1523) 

Like  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Perugino  was  a  pupil  of 
Verrocchio,  and  in  his  youth  he  is  said  to  have 
worked  under  Piero  della  Francesca,  from  whom 
he  learned  the  laws  of  perspe(flive.  A  writer  of 
the  time  praises  him  for  his  knowledge  of  these  laws, 
coupling  his  name  with  that  of  Leonardo.  With 
Leonardo,  too,  he  learned  to  paint  in  oils.  Up  till 
now  painters  had  mixed  their  colours  with  the  white 
of  eggs,  which  is  called  painting  in  tempera.  But 
the  new  way  of  mixing  them  with  oil  had  recently 
been  introduced  by  the  Flemish  painters,  and  had 
gradually  become  universal.  In  other  respects, 
however,  Perugino  lagged  behind  the  great  artists 
of  his  age,  not  caring  to  study  anatomy,  and  earning 
from  Michelangelo  the  name  of  that  "  blockhead  in 
art."  He  was  a  patient,  steady  worker,  painting 
the  same  subjecfls  again  and  again,  and  finding  a 
ready  sale  for  them,  merchants  even  buying  his 
pictures  in  order  to  sell  them  in  foreign  lands,  just 
as  pi(fture-dealers  do  now.  He  paints  with  an 
exquisite  finish,  and  in  his  colours  pure  sunshine 

48 


I  III     '    KI'CIFIXION. 

{.Afirr  Ihe  central  portion  nf  Ihr  frfiuo  by  /'rriigino  hi  Ihr  Con:r>il  of  S.  Mnria 
yfaddalrna  dr  /'nzzi  at  l-lorrncrA 


PERUGINO 

seems  to  busk,  but  their  very  brightness  is 
monotonous,  because  there  are  no  liglits  and 
shadows  in  them,  such  as  we  find  later  in  Bellini's 
pidlures.  He  did  not  care  either  to  fill  his  land- 
scapes with  details  taken  from  nature;  if  you  study 
our  illustration  from  his  pidture  ot  the  Crucifixion, 
you  will  find  the  same  surroundings  which  recur  in 
many  of  his  pi(flures.  The  same  trees  raise  their 
light  and  feathery  branches,  the  same  mountains 
dream  placidly  in  the  distance,  the  same  calm  river 
reflects  the  trees  on  its  surface.  This  pidiure  is, 
like  all  his  work,  perfectly  balanced;  it  breathes 
peace  and  quietness.  If  you  go  to  see  his 
"  Madonna  and  Child  with  the  Archangels  Michael 
and  Raphael  "  in  the  National  Gallery,  you  will 
notice  the  same  charadieristics  ;  there  are  the  same 
trees,  the  same  kind  of  landscape,  the  same  soft 
expression,  even  on  the  face  of  the  warlike  Michael, 
the  same  delicate  finish  in  the  painting  of  the  fish 
slung  from  the  wrist  of  the  little  Tobias,  whom 
Raphael  leads  to  heal  his  father  of  his  blindness. 
In  all  times  people  have  liked  to  possess  that  to 
which  their  eye  is  accustomed,  and  you  will  not 
wonder  that  Perugino  sold  his  pidures  easily.  He 
even  loved  the  money  he  made  too  well,  we  are 
told  ;  nor  must  we  blame  him  overmuch  for  that, 
because  as  a  boy  he  had  been  poor,  and  as  a  young 
man  he  had  known  hunger  and  want.  However 
that     may     be,    he     lived    to    be    old,    "  a    noble, 

49  * 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

gracious,  and  quiet  labourer,"  painting  up  to 
the  last,  and  dying,  in  the  end,  of  the  plague,  that 
scourge  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


Raphael  (1483-1520). 

Raphael,  the  great  painter,  whose  name  you 
certainly  know,  was  a  pupil  of  Perugino.  So 
famous  was  he,  even  in  his  own  day,  that  the  very 
hour  and  day  of  his  birth  have  been  handed  down 
to  us.  He  was  born  at  three  o'clock  on  a  Good 
Friday  morning  in  the  city  of  Urbino,  where  his 
father  lived,  a  painter  and  a  poet  too.  He  was 
taken  while  still  young  to  Perugia  to  learn  paint- 
ing. He  was  quick  to  learn,  and,  with  the  humility 
of  genius,  he  studied  the  work  of  many  masters  of 
his  art.  In  Florence  the  frescoes  of  Massaccio  were 
a  source  of  inspiration  to  him.  He  learnt  much  also 
from  the  living  masters,  Leonardo  and  Michel- 
angelo. The  best  example  of  a  picflure  painted  by 
Raphael  under  this  influence  is  in  the  Brera  at 
Milan.  It  is  a  pi6ture  of  the  Betrothal  of  the 
Virgin  to  S.  Joseph.  In  the  spacious  background  a 
many-sided  temple  stands,  crowning  a  broad  flight 
of  steps.  Quite  in  the  foreground  of  the  picfture  the 
betrothal  group  is  arranged  with  delicate  sim- 
plicity; behind  the  Virgin,  whose  eyes  are  modestly 
downcast,  is  a  group  of  maidens,  dressed  in  the 
fashion  of  Florentine  ladies  of  the  time;  on  Joseph's 

50 


RAPHAEL 

left  hand  one  of  the  rejected  suitors  breaks  the 
barren  rod  over  his  knee  ;  the  rod  that  blossomed 
is  borne  by  Joseph,  the  accepted  spouse.  Raphael 
must  himself  have  been  proud  of  this  pidlure,  for 
he  has  signed  his  name  in  full  on  the  front  of  the 
temple,  with  the  date  in  Roman  figures,  M  Dili  I. 

There  is  one  of  his  portraits  in  Florence  which 
shows  diredlly  Leonardo's  influence  ;  it  is  the 
portrait  of  a  lady,  Maddalena  Doni.  She  is  sitting, 
her  hands  crossed  in  her  lap,  her  whole  bearing 
strangely  like  Leonardo's  famous  "  Monna  Lisa." 
In  the  drawing  for  this  pid:ure,  now  in  the  Louvre, 
the  likeness  is  still  more  striking.  Her  head  is 
drawn  against  a  landscape  bounded  by  two  columns, 
and  it  has  been  suggested  that  if  we  could  remove 
"  Monna  Lisa's  "  frame,  which  is  not  a  contem- 
porary one,  we  should  find  in  Leonardo's  picture 
these  same  two  columns,  proving  more  closely 
their  connection. 

The  year  of  the  painting  of  "  The  Betrothal  " 
we  find  Raphael  in  Florence,  and  there  he  stayed 
for  four  years,  during  which  he  painted  many  well- 
known  works.  I  will  tell  you  of  two,  both  in  the 
National  Gallery.  The  first  is  the  great  "  Ansidei 
Madonna,"  so  called  from  the  noble  family  in 
Perugia  for  whom  Raphael  painted  this  altar-piece. 
The  pidiure  is  finely  composed,  but  is  not  marked 
by  any  great  individuality — that  is  to  say,  we  seem 
to  have  seen  often  before  the  high-throned  Madonna 

51 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

under  her  canopy,  the  Babe  on  her  lap,  and  the  two 
attendant  Saints;  but  there  is  in  it  an  air  of  large 
quiet  and  dignity,  and  such  perfect  workmanship, 
we  could  hardly  find  a  better  example  of  Raphael's 
Florentine  period.  The  second  picture  shows  us  a 
single  figure,  and  that  is  a  type  of  composition  that 
Raphael  often  painted.  Catherine  of  Alexandria, 
the  virgin  martyr,  stands  in  her  green  dress  leaning 
against  the  wheel,  the  symbol  of  her  martyrdom  ; 
behind  is  a  fair  landscape,  in  front  a  little  dande- 
lion gone  to  seed.  The  picflure  is  painted  in  colours 
so  transparent  and  delicate  that  they  seem  to  be  the 
attributes  of  the  Saint  herself. 

In  1508,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  Raphael  set 
out  for  Rome.  He  went  under  the  happiest  auspices 
at  the  invitation  of  the  great  Pope,  Julius  II.,  who 
wished  him  to  paint  certain  rooms  in  his  palace  of 
the  Vatican.  Not  long  after  his  arrival  he  painted  the 
Pope's  portrait.  Raphael  was  greatly  esteemed  for 
his  portraits,  but  we  are  told  that  he  refused  many 
commissions,  painting  only  such  persons  as  he  chose 
thus  to  honour.  This  portrait  of  Julius  II.  is  one  of 
the  first  to  represent  a  great  historical  personage. 
There  are  two  portraits  of  him  still  existing — 
duplicates — and  so  exa(5fly  alike  that  no  one  knows 
which  is  the  original.  They  are  both  in  Florence. 
Another  replica  is  in  the  National  Gallery.  It  shows 
us  the  great  Pope  in  his  chair  of  state,  wearing  his 
crimson  cap,  and  cape  lined  with   white  fur.   His 

5^ 


POPK    I.KO    X. 
\Afier  the  picture  hy  Rnfiharl  in  thr  /'ilti  GaUrry,  Florrnrr.) 


O---  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


RAPHAEL 

white  robe  f.\\\s  in  soft  fine  pleats.  In  his  right 
hand  is  a  handkerchief.  It  is  the  same  JuUus 
who  stands  out  in  the  pages  of  history,  full  of  fire 
and  ceaseless  energy,  always  plotting  and  planning, 
never  cast  down  by  failure,  secure  in  his  own 
boundless  strength.  Though  a  magnificent  patron 
of  the  arts,  he  was  no  lover  of  books,  and  when 
Michelangelo  wanted  to  paint  him  with  a  book  in 
his  hand,  he  scorned  the  idea,  demanding  a  sword. 

But  Raphael's  finest  portrait  is  that  of  Pope 
Leo  X.,  the  successor  of  Julius.  Leo  was  one  of  the 
Medici,  son  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent.  He  was, 
like  his  father,  lavish  in  his  liberality,  loving  art  and 
beauty,  well  read,  and  embodying  in  his  tastes  all 
that  was  most  gorgeous  in  the  Renaissance.  His 
reign  introduced  in  Rome  an  age  of  gold  after  the 
austerities  of  Julius's  iron  rule.  As  you  see  in  the 
illustration,  Raphael  has  painted  him  with  his  magni- 
fying-glass  and  illuminated  missal  on  the  table  before 
him,  showing  him  thus  as  the  great  art-patron  of  his 
time.  It  is  the  picture  of  a  man  still  young  and  full 
of  bodily  strength  ;  he  was  made  Pope  at  the  age 
of  thirty-eight.  His  generous,  pleasure-loving  face 
contrasts  vividly  with  the  look  of  bleached  old  age 
on  the  features  of  the  earlier  Pope. 

During  the  reign  of  Leo  X.,  Raphael  painted 
several  portraits,  one  of  which,  dated  15 16,  now 
hangs  in  the  Louvre,  in  the  same  Salon  Carre 
where  "  Monna    Lisa "   sits   and   smiles.    It   is   the 

53 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

portrait  of  his  friend,  Baldassare  Castiglione,  a 
bearded  man  of  middle  age,  remarkable  for  the 
beauty  of  his  expression.  This  has  always  been  con- 
sidered as  a  masterpiece,  and  we  know  that  both 
Rubens  and  Rembrandt  admired  it  so  much  that 
they  desired  to  copy  it. 

The  cartoons,  illustrating  stories  from  the  lives 
of  the  Apostles,  which  Raphael  designed  for  Leo  X. 
as  tapestries  in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  are  now  in  the 
Vidtoria  and  Albert  Museum.  The  tapestries  were 
first  shown  to  the  Roman  public,  in  all  their 
fresh  beauty,  on  December  26,  15 19,  that  being 
S.  Stephen's  Day,  and  they  were  received  with  great 
enthusiasm.  After  the  death  of  Leo  X.  the  cartoons 
remained  in  the  fadlory  at  Brussels,  where  the 
tapestries  had  been  made.  Some  disappeared,  but 
in  the  seventeenth  century  Rubens  discovered  the 
seven  remaining  picftures,  and  advised  Charles  L  to 
buy  them.  They  were  copied  in  tapestry  at  the  fac- 
tories at  Mortlake  by  Charles's  orders.  William  III. 
had  the  cartoons  properly  mounted,  and  ordered 
Christopher  Wren  to  build  a  special  gallery  for 
them  at  Hampton  Court,  where  they  hung  till  they 
were  removed  to  the  Vid:oria  and  Albert  Museum. 
The  original  tapestries  still  exist  in  the  Vatican.  The 
effedl:  of  these  large  cartoons  is  strongly  dramatic. 
The  Apostles,  in  "  The  Miraculous  Draught  of 
Fishes,"  are  real,  hard-working  fisher-people,  their 
boats  weighed  down  with  the  results  of  their  toil ; 

54 


RAPHAEL 

birds  circle  round  them  in  the  air,  waiting  for  their 
share  of  the  spoil,  and  stand,  their  beaks  wide  open, 
on  the  shore.  "  The  Healing  of  the  Lame  Man  at 
the  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple  "  is,  perhaps,  the 
one  of  all  the  cartoons  which  lends  itself  best  to  be 
woven  in  tapestry.  Raphael  has  introduced  into  it 
the  twisted  column  of  the  Vatican  Basilica,  which 
was  said  to  have  been  brought  from  the  Temple 
at  Jerusalem,  and  around  throng  the  worshippers  in 
their  brilliant  dresses.  Behind  glow  the  san6luary 
lights. 

Wherever  you  go,  whatever  galleries  you  visit, 
you  will  find  examples  of  Raphael's  industry  and 
genius;  but  you  must  learn  to  distinguish  between 
the  simpler  Madonnas  of  his  Florentine  period  and 
the  more  brilliant  pictures  of  the  same  subject 
painted  in  Rome.  To  the  first  belong  the  "Madonna 
in  the  Meadow,"  in  Vienna,  and  the  so-called  "Belle 
Jardiniere,"  in  the  Louvre,  in  both  of  which  the 
Holy  Child  stands  by  the  Madonna's  knee,  while  the 
little  S.  John  kneels  in  adoration.  In  the  Madonna 
from  the  Tempi  Palace,  now  at  Munich,  the  Babe 
is  a  most  human  tiny  creature,  held  close  to  His 
Mother's  heart,  and  half  turning  round  His  baby- 
face  from  that  safe  refuge.  In  Florence  is  the 
*•  Madonna  ot  the  Goldfinch,"  where  the  two 
children  stand  in  a  fioweri ng  meadow  at  the  Virgin's 
knees,  little  John  Baptist  with  a  goklhnch  in  his 
hand,  tempting  the  Holy  Child  to  play. 

55 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

To  the  Roman  period  belongs  "The  Madonna 
with  the  Diadem  "  in  the  Louvre,  where  the  scene 
is  composed  with  more  conscious  art.  The  V^irgin, 
on  her  knees,  is  drawing  back  the  veil  from  the 
face  of  the  sleeping  Child  ;  in  the  background  is  a 
ruined  arch  on  a  hill,  the  first  time  that  monuments 
of  ancient  times  are  introduced  into  pictures.  The 
well-known  "  Sistine  Madonna "  dates  also  from 
this  time.  It  was  painted  for  the  Convent  of  San 
Sisto  at  Piacenza,  bought  many  years  after  by  the 
Eleftor  of  Saxony,  and  given  by  him  to  the  Dresden 
Gallery.  The  pi6ture  is  framed  by  two  curtains 
drawn  back  on  each  side;  the  Madonna,  as  Queen 
of  Heaven,  appears  above  the  clouds,  her  Child  in 
her  arms.  S.  Barbara  and  the  Pope  Sixtus  kneel, 
one  on  each  side  ;  below,  two  winged  cherubim 
regard  the  glorious  vision  with  watchful  eyes. 

The  last  five  years  of  his  life  Raphael  passed 
without  any  interruption  in  Rome,  ceaselessly 
employed,  and  applauded  by  everybody  as  the 
greatest  artist  of  his  day.  He  was  made  papal 
Chamberlain,  and  neighbouring  Princes  vied  with 
one  another  to  secure  works  from  his  ever-busy 
brush.  He  was  surrounded  by  a  large  number  of 
pupils,  some  of  whom  appear  to  have  lived  in  his 
house.  He  was  much  beloved  by  them,  and  knew 
how  to  put  each  one  to  the  work  best  suited  to  his 
abilities.  Even  the  animals  loved  him,  we  are  told, 
for  his  gentleness;   and  his  house  was  full  of  gifts 

56 


RAPHAEL 

from  his  admirers,  which  he  never  found  time  to 
arrange.  His  pictures  were  eagerly  sought  after  in 
Flanders,  in  France,  and  in  Germany.  Albert  Dlirer 
himself  sent  him  a  portrait,  and  exchanged  drawings 
with  him. 

Towards  the  end  of  March,  1520,  an  agreement 
was  drawn  up,  by  which  Raphael  was  to  buy  a 
piece  of  ground  in  the  best  quarter  of  Rome,  in 
order  to  build  himself  a  palace  for  his  treasures. 
Some  ten  days  later  he  died,  after  a  few  days'  illness, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  to  the  bitter  grief,  not 
only  of  Rome,  but  of  the  whole  of  Italy.  He 
died,  as  he  had  been  born,  on  a  Good  Friday.  All 
Rome  flocked  to  his  studio,  where  he  lay  in  state, 
and  they  buried  him  in  the  Pantheon.  Their 
"  divine  painter,"  having  all  his  life  shown  a  tolerant 
love  for  all  that  was  best  in  the  old  as  in  the 
new  ways  of  thought,  lay  thus  appropriately  in 
the  old  temple  of  all  the  gods,  consecrated  to  the 
Christian  religion  by  the  Pope,  Gregory  the  Great. 
The  burial-place  of  Raphael  becomes  in  this  way 
his  best  epitaph,  for  in  his  work  we  see  embodied 
the  very  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  in  its  most  human 
and  wholesome  form. 


57 


CHAPTER  V 

Mantegna  (143 1- 1 506). 

A  FEW  miles  from  Venice  lies  the  town  of  Padua, 
famous  as  giving  its  name  to  a  well-known  school 
of  painters.  The  greatest  of  them  all  was  Mantegna, 
a  pupil  of  the  old  Paduan  painter,  Squarcione,  who 
found  the  boy,  as  some  say,  painting  in  the  fields,  a 
shepherd  lad  like  Giotto,  but  who  certainly  adopted 
him,  and  brought  him  upas  a  painter,  teaching  him 
to  draw  from  copies  of  old  statues  and  pid:ures.  He 
meant  to  have  left  the  young  man  all  he  had,  but 
Mantegna  married  the  daughter  of  Squarcione's  great 
rival,  the  Venetian,  Bellini,  which  so  much  enraged 
his  old  master  that  he  never  spoke  to  his  pupil  again. 
Bellini  made  his  son-in-law  study  the  work  of 
Paolo  Uccello,  of  whom  you  have  already  heard, 
and  before  he  was  thirty  Mantegna  was  appointed 
Court  painter  to  Ludovico  Gonzaga,  Marquis  of 
Mantua.  Pope  Innocent  VIII.  was  another  of  his 
patrons,  but  Mantegna  was  a  proud,  independent 
man,  esteeming  himself  highly,  though  not  unduly, 
and  living  his  own  life  in  the  free,  gallant  manner 
of  his  age.  For  Mantegna  was  before  all  things  the 
child  of  the  Renaissance,  delighting  in  beauty,  un- 
wearied in  its  pursuit.  He  loved  pomp  and  splendour 

58 


MANTEGNA 

too,  and  spent  money  freely,  buying  with  passion 
antiquities  from  the  Greek  and  Roman  times.  He 
was  frequently  pressed  for  want  of  money,  and  it 
nearly  broke  his  heart  when,  on  one  of  these 
occasions,  he  was  forced  to  sell  his  favourite  antique, 
the  bust  of  the  Empress  Faustina.  These  treasures 
trom  classical  times  were  really  necessary  to  his 
development  as  an  artist.  He  cared  specially  for 
sculpture,  upholding  its  superiority  over  the  living 
model  ;  not  that  he  neglected  nature  either,  but  he 
saw  real  things  through  the  glamour  of  antiquity, 
and  painted  them  in  that  way,  which  gives  his 
pictures  a  special  interest  to  us,  and  a  place  by 
themselves  in  the  world  of  art.  You  will  notice  in 
them  that  the  figures  and  their  draperies  are  as 
minutely  modelled  and  finished  as  if  they  were 
indeed  sculptured,  though  at  the  same  time  they 
express  adion  and  emotion  as  no  statue  can  do.  He 
loved  to  draw  great  frescoes  of  triumphal  processions 
taken  trom  the  conquering  Roman  times,  with 
torches  and  waving  pennons,  palm-branches  and 
garlands  of  laurel.  In  Hampton  Court  you  may 
see  such  a  Triumph,  a  set  of  nine  pictures,  painted 
by  Mantegna  in  tempera  on  twilled  linen  to  decorate 
the  theatre  in  the  ducal  palace  at  Mantua.  It  is 
the'*  Triumph  of  Julius  Cassar,"  a  gorgeous  pro- 
cession of  spoil-laden  cars,  covered  with  all  the 
emblems  of  a  conquering  host,  suits  of  armour, 
weapons,  statues,  busts — all  things  Mantegna  loved 
himself  to  possess. 

59 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

Our  illustration  is  from  a  Mantegna  in  the 
Louvre.  It  is  painted  in  light,  gay  colours,  and  is 
a  good  example  of  the  curious  rocky  backgrounds 
masters  of  the  Paduan  School  so  loved  to  paint.  The 
picture  represents  Mount  Parnassus,  the  abode  of 
the  gods.  Enthroned  on  high  are  Mars  and  Venus, 
Mars  fully  equipped  as  the  god  of  war.  Below,  on 
each  side  of  this  central  group,  are  Apollo  and 
Mercury  ;  Apollo  plays  his  lyre  and  to  its  music 
dance  "  the  Muses,  the  Nine,"  circling  round  in  a 
graceful  measure.  Mercury,  with  a  winged  horse, 
stands  ready  for  travel,  hat  on  head,  caduceus  in 
hand ;  he  is  the  messenger  among  the  gods.  The 
picture  is  alive  with  gracious  movement  and  a  kind 
of  measured  Olympian  jollity. 

Among  the  pictures  by  Mantegna  in  the  National 
Gallery  the  "  Virgin  and  Child  Enthroned  "  is 
counted  one  of  his  finest  works.  The  Virgin  sits 
in  dignified  humility  ;  before  her  is  a  stony  ground, 
which  yet  bears  minute  flowery  plants ;  behind,  the 
ilexes  and  lemon-trees  remind  us  that  Mantegna 
was  famed  for  the  accuracy  of  his  leaf-drawing. 
S.  John  Baptist,  an  heroic  figure,  lightly  draped, 
supports  her  on  one  side ;  on  the  other,  Mary 
Magdalen,  with  her  tiny  box  of  very  precious 
ointment,  holds  up  her  cloak,  which  covers  half  of 
her  elaborate  dress,  for,  according  to  tradition,  the 
Magdalen  is  always  dressed  in  the  fashion  of  the 
day. 

60 


r.       & 


.^^ 


CRIVELLI 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Mantegna  was 
named  as  one  of  a  noble  company  of  artists  by  his 
contemporary,  the  poet  Ariosto.  "  Leonardo,  Andrea 
Mantegna,  Gian  BelHni,"  he  writes,  joining  in  one 
Hne  the  three  immortal  names.  And  for  us  his 
memory  lives,  largely  on  account  of  the  great 
inriuence  he  exercised  over  the  early  beginnings  of 
the  famous  school  of  painting  in  Venice. 

Crivelli  (1430-1493). 

Before  we  leave  Mantegna  and  his  way  of  paint- 
ing, I  must  tell  you  a  little  about  an  artist  who, 
though  of  Venetian  descent,  painted  far  more  in  the 
manner  of  Mantegna,  the  Paduan.  This  was  Crivelli, 
who,  apparently  the  pupil  of  Squarcione,  lived  most 
of  his  life  far  away  at  Ascoli,  near  Naples,  and 
being  thus  separated  from  his  fellow-craftsmen, 
painted  independently,  being  little  affected  by  the 
movements  of  his  day.  He  used  tempera,  as  the  old 
artists  had  done,  employing  gold  lavishly,  and  the 
whole  etfed:  of  this  gorgeous  colouring  in  his  clear, 
bright  medium  is  very  pleasing.  He  adorned  his 
pictures  with  delightful  festoons  of  tiowers  and 
fruit,  introducing  also  ornaments  borrowed  from 
classical  architedure,  such  as  arabesques  and  bas- 
reliefs.  His  pictures  abound  in  delicate  detail, 
rich  patterned  brocades,  sculptured  heads  on  the 
fa9ades  of  his  buildings,  carved  and  painted  ceilings, 

61 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

hangings  with  intricate  patterns,  woven  or  em- 
broidered. We  have  a  perfect  example  of  his  art  in 
the  Annunciation  of  the  National  Gallery.  The 
little  Virgin  kneels  at  her  prie-dieu  in  just  such  a 
finely  adorned  bedroom  as  the  Italian  ladies  of 
Crivelli's  time  loved  to  have  in  tlieir  palazzi.  On 
a  shell  above  her  bed  her  little  household  goods  are 
neatly  piled,  as  well  as  her  little  store  of  books ;  her 
bed  is  heaped  with  cushions.  A  peacock  suns  himself 
on  the  ledge  of  the  open  loggia  overhead,  where  caged 
birds  and  flying  pigeons,  flowers  growing  in  bowls 
and  pots,  give  a  happy  picture  of  the  open-air  life 
of  Southern  Italy.  In  the  paved  court  outside, 
S.  Gabriel  kneels,  sumptuously  apparelled  and 
accompanied  by  the  patron  saint  of  Ascoli,  who 
bears  on  his  knee  a  little  model  of  the  city  itself. 
On  the  opposite  side  of  the  court  a  little  girl  peeps 
out  to  see  the  heavenly  visitors.  The  pi6ture  is 
signed  in  full,  below  the  arabesques  of  the  one 
door-post;  the  date,  i486,  is  written  on  the  other. 
Ferdinand  II.  of  Naples  made  Crivelli  a  knight, 
and  the  artist  was  proud  of  his  honour,  invariably 
adding  the  word  "  Miles  "  after  his  signature. 
We  do  not  know  even  the  date  of  his  death  with 
any  certainty,  nor  did  he  found  any  school  of  paint- 
ing ;  but  the  work  of  Crivelli  deserves  to  be  studied 
for  its  warmth  and  charm,  and  because  in  his 
pictures  we  see  so  much  of  the  full,  glowing  life  ot 
the  Renaissance. 

62 


CHAPTER  VI 

We  now  come  to  Venice,  whose  school  or  painting, 
though  developed  nearly  a  hundred  years  later  than 
the  Florentine,  was  perhaps  the  finest  of  all.  This 
pre-eminence  of  Venice  comes  largely  from  the  fa(5l 
that  it  was  her  painters  who,  as  the  fifteenth  century 
died  and  the  sixteenth  began,  produced  that  depth 
and  richness  of  colouring  which  distinguishes  their 
work  from  the  pure,  gay  colouring  of  the  earlier 
masters. 

Giovanni   Bellini   (1428-1516). 

The  first  great  painter  of  this  school  was  Giovanni 
Bellini,  who,  in  his  long  life  of  nearly  ninety  years, 
became  a  master  worthy  of  representing  the  proud 
Venetians  with  their  Princes  and  Doges,  now  arrived 
at  the  height  of  their  power.  You  will  remember 
how,  in  their  early  days,  the  Venetians  had  depended 
for  their  art  on  the  Byzantine  painters,  working  in 
mosaics;  since  those  days  they  had  not  really  pro- 
duced an  art  of  their  own,  although  Giotto's  work 
was  well  known  at  Padua,  only  a  few  miles  away. 
Their  favourite  art  had  been  that  of  architecture, 
and  their  beautiful  palaces,  rising  majestically  from 

63 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

the  lagoons,  had  expressed  nobly  their  love  of  line. 
Shortly  before  the  birth  of  Giovanni  Bellini, 
Pisanello  had  come  to  Venice  to  paint  the  interior 
of  the  Doge's  palace,  which  may  well  have  inspired 
the  Venetians  with  a  desire  to  work  for  themselves. 
Then  Jacopo,  the  father  of  Giovanni,  had  learnt  his 
art  in  the  school  of  Squarcione  at  Padua,  and  had, 
as  I  have  told  you,  given  his  daughter  in  marriage 
to  Mantegna.  Jacopo's  notebooks,  full  of  drawings 
for  the  use  of  his  pupils,  may  be  seen  in  the  Print- 
room  of  the  British  Museum ;  in  them  you  see 
careful  studies,  taken  from  the  everyday  lite  of  the 
time,  market-carts  with  huge  tilts,  sketches  of  the 
wild  animals  which  people  were  beginning  to  bring 
into  the  country  as  curiosities.  The  elder  son, 
Gentile,  known  as  the  "  Master  of  Carpaccio,"  was  a 
great  artist  too,  who  loved  to  paint  the  pomp  and 
splendour  of  Venetian  life.  But  Giovanni's  work  is 
of  the  very  highest  importance,  because  he  stands 
at  the  head  of  a  number  of  great  artists  whose 
picftures  are  all  known  by  their  richness  of  colour 
and  nobility  of  expression.  It  was  a  group  of  men 
who  painted  altar-pieces  and  sacred  pictures  of  many 
kinds,  marked  by  a  peculiarly  glowing  atmosphere 
of  distin6tion  and  solemnity.  Unlike  Mantegna, 
Bellini  did  not  try  to  represent  such  subjedis  with  a 
quaint  sort  of  reality;  he  endowed  his  figures  with 
a  dignified  grace,  and  insisted  especially  on  their 
moral  and  spiritual  beauty. 

64 


GIOVANNI   BELLINI 

The  Venetians  were  the  first  artists  to  paint  on 
canvas,  instead  of  on  panels  of  wood.  The  best 
wood  to  paint  on  was  maple  or  poplar,  neither  of 
which  could  be  got  easily  in  that  city  of  the  waters. 
Fir-wood  they  could  obtain  by  water  from  Germany 
and  its  wide  forests,  but  they  preferred  canvas, 
which  did  not  crack,  and  could  be  cut  to  any  given 
shape,  or  rolled  up  for  journeys. 

Giovanni  was  employed,  as  Pisanello  had  been, 
to  decorate  the  palace  of  the  Doge,  but  unfortu- 
nately his  paintings  in  the  great  Council  Chamber 
have  been  destroyed.  His  own  brother.  Gentile,  and 
Carpaccio,  of  whom  I  shall  tell  you  later,  were  his 
assistants  in  this  work.  Gentile  was  lent  by  the 
Doge  to  the  Sultan  at  Constantinople,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  laws  of  Mahomet  forbidding  portraiture,  the 
Sultan  sat  to  the  artist  for  a  picture,  finished  on 
November  25,  1480.  It  still  exists,  and  we  see  from 
it  where  Gentile  studied  the  complicated  folds  of 
the  rich  turban,  which  he  afterwards  introduced  so 
often  into  his  pictures. 

We  may  study  Giovanni  Bellini's  work  in  the 
National  Gallery  :  first  there  is  to  be  seen  a  very 
early  picture  of  his,  illustrating  a  subjc(5t  rarely 
treated  in  art,  "The  Blood  of  the  Redeemer." 
Crivelli  has  painted  it  too,  but  in  Bellini's  work  we 
have  much  more  sense  of  atmosphere,  and  the  land- 
scape behind  the  central  Figure  is  interesting  with 
ruins  and  castellated  buildings.    A  curious  example 

6j 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

of  his  love  of  detail  may  be  noted  here.  On  the 
low  marble  panels  behind  the  figure  of  the  Risen 
Saviour  satyrs  are  seen,  carved  in  the  true  classical 
style,  but  the  heathen  sacrifice  they  are  celebrating  is 
a  symbol  of  the  one  great  Sacrifice  of  the  Christian 
faith.  The  blood  which  pours  from  our  Lord's 
wounded  side  is  received  by  a  little  kneeling  Angel, 
who  holds  the  chalice.  Behind  lies  the  landscape 
in  the  twilight  of  early  dawn.  "The  Agony  in  the 
Garden"  is  of  rather  later  date.  In  it  Christ  kneels 
on  a  grassy  mound,  surrounded  by  a  low  wattled 
fence.  The  wearied  Apostles  sleep  in  the  fore- 
ground ;  behind,  the  half-naked  Roman  soldiers  are 
seen  advancing.  The  special  interest  of  the  pid:ure 
is  its  lighting,  and  you  will  notice  that  the  clouds 
are  rosy  in  the  sunset,  while  twilight  is  falling, 
which  gives  a  corresponding  light  and  shadow  to 
the  figures  in  the  picflure.  This  is  an  innovation, 
as  hitherto  there  had  been  no  attempt  made  by 
artists  to  connect  their  foregrounds  with  their  back- 
grounds as  far  as  light  was  concerned. 

The  third  pi6ture  in  the  National  Gallery  belongs 
quite  to  Bellini's  old  age.  Peter  Martyr,  the  subjedt 
of  this  early  landscape,  was  one  of  the  Inquisitors 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  murdered  in  revenge  for 
his  persecution  of  a  certain  noble  Italian  family. 
The  pursuit  of  the  Saint  and  his  murder  are 
dramatically  shown,  the  forest  is  thick  with  trees, 
and  the  wood-cutters  placidly  continue  their  work 

66 


nil.    MAl'n.NNA    AM)    CIII1I>    I.  \  I  II  RON  Kl  >. 

(  From  thr  cfnirr  fatirl  of  Ihr  tri/itvch  iilliit-ftiiir  hy  (iuntinni  Hrllini in 
Ihr  Chiirih  of  Ihr  I'ntri  ,il  I  rniii:) 


m. 


GIOVANNI   BELLINI 

of  felling  the  trees  by  the  roadside.  To  the  left  of 
the  picfture  is  a  lovely  little  town  with  its  arcades 
and  bridges,  and  a  church  perched  high  on  the 
hill  beyond. 

For  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life  Bellini 
cared  increasingly  to  paint  two  subjects  only,  the 
Madonna  and  Child  and  the  Dead  Christ  at 
the  Tomb.  Our  illustration  is  a  fine  example  of  the 
former  subjecSt;  it  is  the  **  Madonna  and  Child," 
from  the  triptych  in  the  Church  of  the  Frari  in 
Venice.  It  is  one  of  the  most  perfe(fl  and  best 
preserved  of  Bellini's  works,  finished  and  delivered 
over  to  the  convent  in  1488.  In  this  splendid 
pic^lure  you  will  admire  the  noble  pose  of  the 
Virgin  ;  the  full,  dignified  folds  of  her  blue  cloak, 
the  breadth  and  balance  of  the  whole  composition, 
and  the  gracious  charm  of  the  boy-angels  under  the 
pedestal  at  her  feet,  with  their  tiny  tunics  and  their 
downy  wings. 

Bellini  painted,  we  are  told,  many  portraits,  most 
of  which  have  unhappily  perished.  But  we  have 
one  magnificent  example  in  the  National  Gallery, 
the  sixty-seventh  Doge,  Leonardo  Loredano.  You 
know  the  picture  well,  I  expedl,  for  it  is  often  repro- 
duced, and  in  it  you  will  recognize  the  born  ruler 
of  men,  full  of  quiet  dignity,  patience,  and  self- 
control,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Doges,  who,  like 
our  Cromwell,  made  **  all  the  neighbour  Princes 
fear  him." 

67 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

This  self-control  and  reasonableness  are  characfter- 
istic  of  Bellini's  own  work,  and  are,  indeed,  qualities 
of  the  true  Venetian.  He  knew  how  to  express 
human  passions,  but  always  with  exquisite  judgment, 
which  never  allowed  him  to  become  effeminate  or 
sentimental. 


i 

i 


68 


1 


CHAPTER   VII 

Carpaccio  (1450-1522) 

Carpaccio,  who  worked  first,  as  I  have  said,  under 
Gentile  Bellini,  was  one  of  the  moderns  in  the 
early  sixteenth  century;  he  painted  entirely  in  oil, 
and  his  fascinating  work  can  best  be  studied  in 
Venice,  where  he  worked  all  his  life.  There  you 
can  see,  in  a  series  of  nine  pidlures,  his  version  of 
the  story  of  S.  Ursula  and  the  eleven  thousand 
Virgins,  and  from  them  you  can  reconstru(^t  the 
daily  life  of  the  Venice  of  his  time,  not  only  outside, 
in  the  busy  stirring  streets  and  water-courses,  but 
indoors,  in  the  decorated  rooms,  where  the  noble 
Venetians  slept  or  ate.  The  bed-chamber  of  the 
Princess  Ursula,  for  she  was  a  King's  daughter,  is  a 
model  room  for  any  girl  ;  in  it  you  see  the  tall  bed 
with  its  twisted  columns  supporting  the  canopy, 
and  the  well-smoothed  sheets  and  tidy  pillow,  where 
she  sleeps  serenely.  Neatness  and  order  reign 
everywhere  :  in  the  folded  clothes  on  the  chair,  the 
little  crown  laid  aside  for  the  night,  the  well-trained 
pinks  growing  in  their  beautiful  pot  on  the  window- 
sill — no  detail  is  wanting  in  the  fair  room,  breathing 
peace.   Again,  in  the  pic^ture  showing  the  arrival  of 

69 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

her  suitors,  you  see  the  gay  gallants  of  the  day,  slim 
figures  in  long  hose,  hawk  on  wrist.  You  see  the 
ships  that  brought  them — Venetians  knew  all  about 
ships — the  wind  in  their  tossing  pennants.  In  the 
pi(fture  of  Ursula  being  interviewed  by  the  King 
her  father,  you  must  notice  that  a  pidture  hangs  on 
the  wall  of  the  room,  one  of  the  first  instances  of  a 
pi(fture  painted"  in  a  picfture. 

The  Princess  had  refused  to  marry  until  she  had, 
accompanied  by  her  Virgins,  made  a  journey  to 
convert  the  heathen.  Our  illustration  is  from  this 
series ;  S.  Ursula  had  sailed  to  Rome  to  receive  the 
papal  blessing,  and  had  now  reached  Cologne.  But 
the  city  was  found  to  be  in  the  hands  of  pagan 
soldiers.  You  see  the  waiting  men-at-arms,  the 
landing-stage,  on  which  the  spotted  dog  lies  idly  ; 
Carpaccio  delighted  to  paint  dogs  and  birds  in  his 
pitflures.  Everywhere  is  life  and  movement,  in  the 
flags  floating  from  the  towers  of  the  city  and  from 
the  little  tents  pitched  by  the  riverside,  in  the 
clouds  drifting  across  the  skv,  while  the  good 
ship's  sails  are  furled  after  her  voyage.  This  is  the 
dramatic  moment  of  the  whole  stor\%  when  the 
Princess  is  to  receive  the  crown  ot  martyrdom. 
The  man-at-arms,  who  is  to  shoot  her  through  the 
heart,  is  standing  with  his  bow  all  ready  strung. 
But  the  Princess,  undaunted,  harangues  the  infidels 
from  her  ship ;  you  can  see  her  little  head  with 
its  crown.   Behind  her  is  the  Pope  with  his  triple 

70 


THE   ARRIVAL   OK   S.    URSULA. 
{A/lrr  thr  picture  by  J'.  Carpaccio  in  Ihr  Arcademla,  I >«(<-»•.) 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


CARPACCIO 

crown  ;  he  had  apparently  joined  her  on  lier  pious 
journey.  And  then  there  are  the  crowding  heads 
of  her  companions,  those  sweet  Virgins,  who,  in  all 
their  wanderings,  felt  neither  hunger  nor  thirst, 
and  kept  always  clean,  without  the  need  of  any 
washing.  It  is  the  end  of  all  things  earthly  for 
S.  Ursula  and  for  them :  here  in  Cologne  they 
were  all  murdered  by  the  sword ;  perhaps  the 
raven,  the  bird  of  ill  omen,  sits  on  the  branching 
tree  as  the  symbol  of  disaster. 

Little  is  known  of  Carpaccio's  private  life,  but 
his  pi61:ures  in  Venice  are  memorial  enough,  and 
they  will  always  keep  his  memory  bright  for  us. 

GioRGioNE   (1477-1511). 

At  the  same  time  that  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was 
the  glory  of  Florence,  there  lived  a  painter  in 
Venice,  greater  even  than  Bellini,  called  Gior- 
gione,  or  "  Big  George,"  because  he  was  tall  and 
splendid  to  look  upon.  He  was  born  at  a  little 
place  lying  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea 
called  Castelfranco,  but  he  was  brought  up  in 
Venice.  He  sang,  we  are  told,  and  played 
divinely,  but  he  excelled  all  others  in  painting. 
He  worked  in  oil,  like  Carpaccio,  and,  like 
Leonardo,  he  made  special  use  of  contrasting 
masses  of  light  and  shade.  His  colours  have  a 
wonderful  depth  and  richness,  and  whatever  subject 

71 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

he  touched  he  inspired  with  beauty  and  dignity. 
He  died,  unhappily,  of  the  plague  when  only 
thirty-four,  and  very  few  of  his  pid:ures  are  known, 
yet  these  few  are  of  such  extraordinary  and  romantic 
charm  that  they  stand  out  from  other  men's  work, 
as  you  will  yourselves  see. 

Our  illustration  is  taken  from  one  of  his  most 
famous  picflures,  the  altar-piece  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  in  the  Church  of  Castelfranco.  Look  at 
the  picture  first  only  as  a  design :  you  see  how 
finely  balanced  it  is,  how  broadly  planned.  Then, 
looking  at  the  figures  themselves,  notice  the  majesty 
of  the  Mother  with  her  Child,  although  she  is  per- 
fedily  human  too;  the  Knight,  S.  Liberale,  standing 
superb  with  his  pennant ;  S.  Francis,  our  Saint  from 
Assisi,  with  his  girdle  of  rope,  and  his  hand  out- 
stretched, showing  his  pierced  palm,  the  **  Stigmata  " 
received  from  God  in  a  vision.  Behind  is  the  lovely 
landscape  of  Giorgione's  home,  the  mellow  sun- 
light on  the  distant  mountains,  with  the  castellated 
tower  on  the  hill  near  by,  that  gives  the  little  town 
its  name.  In  this  pi(5lure  the  landscape  is  used  in 
the  way  already  familiar  to  us  as  a  background  only, 
but  Giorgione  was  the  first  to  paint  landscape  for 
its  own  sake,  and  then  to  place  a  figure  or  two  in  it. 
A  picfture  by  him  in  a  private  collediion  in  Venice, 
called  "The  Family  of  Giorgione,"  is  an  example 
of  this.  It  represents  a  wooded  landscape,  through 
which  a  little  river  runs,  past  a  town  and  under  a 

72 


TIIK  VIKC.IN  AXI»  fllll.H  KNTHRONKI)  HKIWKtCN  s.  I  IKI.KAI  I.  ANUS.  KRANi  IS. 
{From  llir  iilliir-f>ircr  by  Giorgioiir  in  Ihr  I'hitrrh  nt  (.'iislrtfia»ro.\ 


GIORGIONE 

bridge,  almost  bathing  the  feet  of  a  gipsy  woman 
who  is  sitting  on  the  grass  suckling  her  child. 
Opposite  to  her,  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream,  a 
warrior,  resting  on  his  lance,  is  looking  at  her; 
behind,  heavy  storm-clouds  are  lowering.  The 
picture  possesses  an  exciting  charm  and  a  sense  of 
mystery  in  its  beauty  greater,  I  think,  than  you 
will  find  in  the  work  of  any  other  painter. 

Another  picture  by  Giorgione  is  the  ''Sleeping 
Venus "  in  the  Dresden  Gallery,  a  lovely  nude 
figure,  lying  on  the  grass  in  the  foreground  of  a 
wide  landscape.  You,  perhaps,  have  seen  copies 
of  the  head,  propped  on  the  right  arm,  the  soft 
sleeping  face,  hair  parted  in  the  middle,  full  lips 
pouted  a  little  with  the  gentle  breath — all  repose 
and  healthful  rest.  The  pidiure  you  will  probably 
see  first  by  this  great  and  rare  master  is  *'  The 
Concert,"  in  the  Louvre,  where,  sitting  on  the 
ground  in  a  garden,  in  a  rich  mellow  light, 
musicians  play  on  instruments  that  Giorgione  him- 
self handled,  while  lovely  women  listen. 

Besides  the  immense  interest  of  the  few  pid:ures 
we  know  that  are  certainlv  the  work  of  Giorgione, 
we  must  remember  that  his  influence  on  the 
painters  who  followed  him  was  extraordinarily 
great  and  far-reaching.  Chief  among  them  all 
stands  the  name  of  Titian,  himself,  like  Giorgione, 
a  pupil  of  Bellini. 

73 


CHAPTER    VIII 

Titian  (1477-1576) 

The  ninety-nine  years  of  Titian's  lite  were  filled 
with  toil,  and  he  has  left  us  a  legacy  of  beauty  so 
great  that  his  very  name  seems  to  glow  with  the 
reflected  glory  of  his  colour.  He  began  to  work, 
they  say,  when,  as  a  little  boy  of  nine  years,  he 
went  to  Venice  to  learn  painting  under  Gentile 
Bellini.  But  later,  when  he  came  to  know 
Giorgione,  he  left  Bellini,  and  grew  to  paint  so 
like  his  new  master  that  their  work  was  often  con- 
fused, even  whilst  they  were  both  alive.  This  did 
not  please  Giorgione,  as  you  may  well  imagine,  and 
the  friendship  between  the  two  men  ended.  Titian 
became  famous  as  a  painter  of  portraits,  and  no 
great  Prince  nor  grand  lady  of  his  day  was  content 
without  sitting  to  him  to  be  painted.  His  best 
patron  was  the  famous  Emperor,  Charles  V.,  of 
whom  he  painted  many  picflures.  When  the 
Emperor  had  not  time  to  give  him  sittings,  Titian 
would  draw  a  sketch  from  life,  quickly,  in  a  few 
hours,  and  finish  a  great  portrait  from  it  afterwards. 
One  of  these  sketches  has  been  sold  lately  for  a 
very  large  sum.    The  two   best-known   portraits  of 

74 


TITIAN 

Charles  V.  are,  first,  the  Emperor  on  the  battlefield 
of  Mlihlberg,  now  in  Madrid,  where  the  conqueror, 
lance  in  hand  and  in  kdl  armour,  rides  a  gaily  cap- 
arisoned horse  over  a  field.  The  horse's  plumes 
nod  magnificently  as  Charles  dashes  forward  at  full 
gallop,  and  the  pidure  shows  how  finely  Titian's 
art  could  triumph  over  the  difficulty  of  representing 
ad:ion  in  commemoration  of  a  given  event.  The 
second,  painted  not  long  after,  is  a  great  contrast. 
It  is  now  at  Munich,  and  shows  the  sad-faced 
Emperor  sitting  in  his  chair,  pale  with  ill-health. 

Besides  portraits,  Titian  loved  to  paint  landscape, 
and,  born  near  the  Alps,  he  was  able  to  show  the 
mountains  and  crags  he  knew  so  well,  and  fill  them 
with  the  magic  of  his  brush  ;  for,  as  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds said  of  him  long  years  after,  he  was  so  gifted  as 
to  endow  everything  he  touched  with  grandeur  and 
importance.  He  does  not,  perhaps,  throw  the  gates 
of  Heaven  open  to  us  as  some  of  the  earlier  painters 
of  whom  I  have  told  you,  but  he  showed  us  a  perfecft 
earth,  where  all  is  joy  and  human  delight. 

We  are  fortunate  enough  to  possess,  in  the 
National  Gallery,  a  glorious  pidure,  painted  by 
Titian  for  the  Duke  of  Ferrara,  who,  we  are  told, 
himself  gave  Titian  the  canvas  and  the  frame  for 
his  pidure,  and  only  received  the  finished  work  after 
he  had  written  repeatedly  to  demand  it.  It  is  the 
story  of  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,  the  beautiful  story 
beloved  of  artists,  at  the  moment  when  the  wine-god 

75 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

with  his  rabble  rout  pursues  the  flying  maiden,  left 
desolate  by  the  false-hearted  Theseus.  In  the  fore- 
ground spring-flowers  bloom,  the  iris,  the  wild  rose, 
and  the  columbine,  for  it  is  springtime  on  the  shores 
of  Ariadne's  island  of  Naxos,  and  all  around  glow 
the  faint  blue  of  the  distant  mountains  and  the 
deeper  blue  of  the  sea,  washing  the  clifl^s  and  walls 
of  the  little  town  on  its  edge.  The  whole  pidiure,  in 
its  setting  of  solemn  trees,  with  its  clashing  cymbals, 
leopard-drawn  car,  dominated  by  the  splendid  fiery 
figure  of  the  young  vine-crowned  god,  giv^es  the 
same  feeling  as  Milton's  "  Comus,"  of  hot,  still  air, 
impetuous  love,  romantic  haste ;  we  know  it  must 
have  happened  so.  It  sets  us  thinking  of  the  days 
when  the  gods  were  young,  and  our  thoughts  tiy 
forward  with  the  flying  Ariadne. 

The  same  beautiful  manner  of  subordinating 
landscape  to  the  story,  while  making  it  vital  and 
full  of  charm,  is  seen  in  a  very  diflerent  picture  in 
the  same  gallery — Titian's  "  Repose  of  the  Holy 
Family  on  their  Flight  into  Egypt."  All  around  the 
central  figures  is  the  lovely  play  of  light  and  shade, 
and  the  subjedl  lends  itself  to  the  introdud:ion  ot 
many  points  of  homely  interest  :  flocks  of  sheep, 
farm-labourers  at  their  daily  toil,  peasants,  and 
travellers  passing  by.  In  the  Venice  Academy  you 
will  see  another  religious  picture,  Titian's  fiimous 
Assumption,  in  which  the  Virgin,  a  grand  figure 
in  a  blue  mantle,  is  borne  upwards  to  Heaven,  where 

76 


TITIAN 

the  Angel  awaits  her,  bearing  her  crown  of  glory. 
Boy-angels  float  at  her  feet,  and  the  Apostles,  stand- 
ing on  the  earth  far  below  her,  stretch  their  arms 
upwards,  lifting  humble  eyes  to  that  Heaven  which 
is  so  soon  to  envelop  her  whom  they  adore. 

Another  picture  in  the  same  gallery  is  the  de- 
lightful "  Presentation  of  the  Little  Virgin  at  the 
Temple."  This  is  a  good  example  of  the  dignity 
with  which  Titian  clothes  any  subjedl  he  touches. 
The  little  maiden  mounts  the  Temple  steps  all 
alone,  holding  up  her  long  skirt  so  as  not  to  stumble. 
From  the  windows  and  balconies  of  the  surrounding 
houses  people  crowd  to  watch  her.  In  the  fore- 
ground an  old  woman  sits  with  her  basket  of  eggs 
to  sell.  But  the  child  Virgin  is  the  crown  and 
centre  of  the  picture  in  all  her  baby  stateliness. 

There  is  still  another  chara(fleristic  side  to  Titian's 
genius,  his  pictures  with  an  allegorical  meaning, 
such  as  the  "  Sacred  and  Profane  Love "  in  the 
Borghese  Gallery  in  Rome.  Here  everyone  who 
looks  may  make  his  own  story  and  his  own  inter- 
pretation. Against  a  lovely  background  of  hill  and 
valley  two  women  are  seated  on  the  brink  of  a 
carved  stone  fountain  ;  one  in  the  rich,  wide-flowing 
dress  of  the  period  is  listening,  her  face  half-averted, 
to  the  persuasions  of  the  second  woman,  who,  clad 
only  in  her  own  beautv,  is  holding  a  little  vase 
in  her  lifted  hand.  Between  them  a  dimpled  Cupid 
dabbles  his  fat  arm  in  the  water  of  the  fountain. 

77 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

Titian  lived  long,  and  died  full  of  honours :  twice 
his  Emperor  had  sent  for  him  to  attend  his  Court  at 
Augsburg  ;  he  had  been  made  a  Knight  of  the 
Golden  Spur,  and  he  bore  the  title  of  Count  Pala- 
tine ;  his  children  had  been  given  the  rank  of 
nobles,  and  were  considered  the  equals  of  those  who 
had  four  generations  of  ancestors. 

He  had,  as  far  as  we  know,  but  few  pupils,  yet 
for  all  time  painters  have  continued  to  go  to  his 
picflures  for  instruction  and  inspiration ;  he  ranks 
with  Giorgione  as  one  of  the  greatest  colourists  of 
the  world. 


78 


CHAPTER  IX 

Lorenzo  Lotto  (1476-1553). 

Lorenzo  Lotto  was  one  of  Bellini's  pupils.  His 
contemporaries  tell  us  that  he  was  a  very  upright  and 
Christian  man,  of  a  retiring  disposition,  who  spent 
the  greater  part  of  his  life  among  the  Dominican 
monks.  He  never  sought  the  patronage  of  the  great, 
and  in  his  old  age  he  fell  on  evil  days,  and  had  to 
be  supported  by  charity  at  the  Santa  Casa  of  Loreto. 
The  great  Titian  was  his  friend,  and  we  possess  a 
letter  in  which  Titian,  writing  from  Augsburg, 
sends  Lotto  greetings  and  words  of  praise  and  en- 
couragement for  his  works.  Like  other  painters  of 
his  day,  he  was  much  influenced  by  Giorgione,  but 
his  pi(flures  show  great  individuality,  and  are  always 
interesting,  even  mysterious;  he  makes  you  want  to 
know  more  about  his  sitters,  and  why  he  chose  to 
paint  the  various  objects  that  surround  them.  As  you 
may  guess  from  his  piety.  Lotto  painted  many  altar- 
pieces,  but  it  is  by  his  portraits  that  we  know  him 
best ;  you  may  see  several  of  these  in  the  National 
Gallery,  One  of  them  is  a  portrait-group  of  himselt 
seated  at  a  table  with  his  wife  and  two  children,  the 
wife  a  beautiful  young  woman,  with  plaited  hair 

79 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

and  a  gorgeous  big-sleeved  dress.  She  holds  in  her 
arms  the  younger  child,  who  stretches  out  her  little 
fat  hands  towards  a  tempting  dish  of  red  cherries  on 
the  table.  Another  is  a  portrait  of  Agostino  del 
Torre,  Professor  of  Medicine  to  the  University  of 
Padua,  and  his  brother  Niccolo.  Agostino,  in  his 
comfortable,  plum-coloured  and  fur-lined  coat  is 
holding  in  his  hand  a  copy  of  Galen's  works,  because 
Galen  was  the  most  famous  of  all  the  ancient  writers 
on  medicine.  Still  another  of  Lotto's  portraits  was 
exhibited  in  London  not  long  ago,  a  splendid  young 
woman,  called  Lucrezia,  after  the  famous  Roman 
matron;  she  is  represented  in  all  the  pride  of  her 
matchless  purity  with  broad,  calm  browns,  in  her  hand 
a  sketch  of  an  undraped  female  figure.  Lotto's  por- 
traits, like  Leonardo's,  are  full  of  intelleftual  refine- 
ment and  inward  grace.  They  do  not  only  represent 
beautiful  outw^ard  forms,  although  Lotto  loved  much 
to  paint  people  as  he  really  saw  them;  they  reveal, 
with  a  kind  of  passionate  intensity,  the  inner  spirit 
of  his  sitters. 

Moroni  (1525-1578). 

I  must  now  tell  you  about  another  portrait-painter, 
an  artist  of  great  merit  too,  but  in  a  very  different 
manner  from  Lorenzo  Lotto.  Moroni's  portraits 
are  extraordinarily  natural  ;  when  we  see  them,  we 
know  that  just  so  the  sitters  must  have  looked  ;  we 
forget    the  many  hundred  years   that   have   passed 

80 


MORONI 

since  they  were  alive,  and  we  feel  that  we  should 
recognize  them  at  once  if  we  met  them  on  our 
daily  walks.  But  for  all  that,  we  do  not  know 
them  intimately,  nor  recognize  them  as  if  we  had 
listened  to  their  talk,  or  read  their  books;  Moroni 
never  gives  us  a  glimpse  into  their  minds. 

We  have  in  the  National  Gallery  seven  of  his 
portraits  :  an  ecclesiastic ;  a  knight ;  a  lady  ;  two 
noblemen  in  armour,  one  who  has  his  foot  in  a 
kind  of  splint  had  perhaps  been  recently  wounded 
in  battle ;  a  lawyer,  carrying  a  letter  on  which  his 
own  name  is  written ;  and  lastly,  the  well-known 
tailor,  who,  holding  his  shears  in  his  hand,  is 
pausing  to  look  at  us  with  his  kind,  soft  eyes, 
before  he  cuts  into  his  cloth.  He  wears  a  white 
doublet  covered  with  minute  slashes,  and  dull  red 
hose ;  he  is  the  very  prince  of  tailors.  One  of  the 
noble  warriors  is  a  most  magnificent  gentleman.  We 
see  him  full  length,  in  chain  armour,  with  a  leathern 
surcoat,  a  fine  velvet  hat  and  feather  on  his  head,  his 
great  plumed  helmet  on  a  pedestal  by  his  side.  The 
plumes  are  all  black  or  white,  except  a  single  red 
one,  the  only  note  of  colour  in  the  whole  picture. 

Titian  admired  Moroni's  work,  and  when  sitters 
from  Moroni's  native  state  of  Bergamo  journeyed 
to  Venice  to  be  painted  by  Titian,  he  would  send 
them  back  to  their  own  country,  saying  they  would 
find  an  artist  of  their  own  there,  than  whom  no 
better  painter  of  faces  ever  existed. 

8i  G 


ITALY  AND  HER  PAINTERS 

Veronese  (1528-1588). 

Paolo  Veronese  was  named  after  his  birthplace, 
Verona ;  but  he  studied  and  finally  worked  in 
Venice  exclusively,  and  in  his  pictures  shines  the 
rich,  sumptuous,  glowing  life  of  sixteenth-century 
Venice.  When  he  settled  there  in  his  twenty- 
sevenih  year,  Titian,  though  an  old  man,  was  still 
busily  at  work.  Veronese,  it  is  true,  never  equalled 
Titian,  but  he  is  the  only  master  of  his  time  who 
even  approaches  the  splendour  of  the  older  painter. 
The  subjects  which  we  conned:  with  his  name  are 
threefold — sacred,  classical,  and  historical ;  subjects 
which  he  always  represents  in  a  vividly  dramatic 
manner  as  taking  place  in  his  own  day.  Thus,  he 
painted  feasts  for  the  refe61:ories  of  rich  convents — 
Bible  feasts,  such  as  that  of  the  Marriage  at  Cana 
of  Galilee,  partaken  of  in  a  palace,  rich  in  pillared 
architecture,  open  to  the  blue  sky,  where  the  guests 
wear  gorgeous  Venetian  dresses,  and  sup  on  silver 
plates  with  glittering  cups  of  gold.  He  loved  to 
introduce  into  these  feasts  strange  dwarfs  and 
monkeys,  as  well  as  more  homely  dogs  and  cats,  and 
in  the  large  picture  on  this  subje6t,  now  in  the 
Louvre,  you  may  see  the  portraits  of  his  friends 
among  the  guests;  even  Titian,  the  great  master,  is 
there,  a  grey-haired  man  among  the  musicians, 
playing  the  contrabass  in  a  red  damask  robe. 

We  have  in  the  National  Gallery  one  of  these 
crowded  canvases,  "  The  Family  of  Darius  before 

82 


i 


VERONESE 

the  Conquering  Alexander,"  looking  for  all  the 
world  like  some  superb  design  for  tapestry.  The 
a(5tion  takes  place  in  a  courtyard  ;  Alexander  in 
classical  armour  receives  his  conquered  foes,  while 
the  ladies  are  dressed  in  flowing  Venetian  fashion.  In 
the  crowd  of  onlookers  are  two  Persian  women  in 
native  dress,  and  an  ugly  dwarf,  watching  the  antics 
of  a  nimble  little  monkey.  Behind  Alexander  is  the 
gigantic  head  of  his  fabled  horse,  Bucephalus.  In 
the  National  Gallery  too,  but  more  interesting,  and 
in  striking  contrast  to  this  crowded  pi(5lure,  is  "The 
Vision  of  S.  Helena,"  painted  by  Veronese  with 
reverent  simplicity  as  an  altar-piece  for  a  church  in 
Venice.  You  remember  that,  before  her  pilgrimage 
to  Jerusalem,  Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantine, 
saw  a  vision  of  the  True  Cross,  which  she  was  to 
discover  there.  She  is  represented  in  full  draperies 
of  pale  red,  seated  at  an  open  window,  through 
which  the  angel-borne  Cross  appears.  The  window 
is  indeed  ever  open  to  S.  Helena  as  she  sleeps,  and 
the  sweet  air  from  Heaven  fans  the  forehead  of  the 
beautiful,  big-limbed  woman,  who  rests  her  sleeping 
head  on  one  hand,  the  other  lying  quietly  on  the 
folds  of  her  ample  draperies. 

Except  on  one  occasion,  when  Veronese  went  in 
the  suite  of  the  Venetian  Ambassador  to  Rome,  he 
lived  all  his  life  in  Venice,  and  there  died,  a  great 
painter,  who  in  his  work  summed  up  all  the 
magnificence  ot  his  chosen  city,  then  at  the  very 
summit  of  her  prosperity. 

83 


PART  II 
EARLY  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

CHAPTER  I 

We  must  now  leave  Italy,  and  retrace  our  steps  to 
about  the  time  when  Massaccio  was  working  at 
Florence — that  is  to  say,  in  the  early  fifteenth  cen- 
tury ;  for  at  that  time  there  were,  living  in  the 
northern  countries  of  Europe,  artists  working  on 
their  own  lines,  inspired  by  an  equal  though  a  very 
different  sense  of  beauty,  intent  on  discovering  the 
same  secrets,  and  putting  into  their  pi6lures  with 
zealous  care  their  own  distinctive  habits  of  thought 
and  feeling.  What  they  cared  for  most  of  all  was 
reality,  and  they  reproduced  in  their  pictures, 
always  with  minutest  care,  their  own  lives  as  they 
lived  them  day  by  day.  Especially  we  learn  to  know 
the  inside  of  their  houses,  for  in  those  northern 
countries  there  was  less  out-of-door  life  than  in  the 
south,  and  people  were  more  dependent  for  comfort 
and  beauty  on  their  indoor  surroundings.  Thus,  they 
show  us  in  their  picftures  how  their  rooms  looked, 
and  how  the  sun  shone   into  them  through  their 

85 


EARLY   FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

high  windows,  and  how  they  loved  to  collect  in 
them  beautiful  things — carvings  and  mirrors  and 
hangings;  and  even  when  they  painted  the  Virgin 
or  the  saints,  they  placed  these  holy  people  in 
rooms  familiar  to  the  painters,  and  did  not  seek  to 
surround  them  with  the  gold  and  glitter  of  any  far- 
off  ideal  country.  This  school  of  painting  is  called 
the  Early  Flemish,  and  it  owes  its  fame  to  the 
genius  of  two  brothers,  Hubert  and  Jan  van  Eyck. 

Jan  van  Eyck  {ctrca  1390- 1440). 

Jan  van  Eyck  came  with  his  brother  Hubert  to 
Ghent  somewhere  about  1420,  and  there  Hubert  re- 
mained till  his  early  death,  painting  many  beautiful 
religious  pid:ures,  the  most  famous,  the  great  altar- 
piece,  "  The  Adoration  of  the  Lamb,"  which  you 
may  see  to  this  day  in  the  Church  of  S.  Bavon  at 
Ghent,  for  which  it  was  first  designed.  Jan  helped 
his  brother  in  this  great  work,  and  finished  it  after 
his  death  ;  but  he  early  entered  Court  service,  first 
under  John  of  Bavaria,  then  as  Court  painter  under 
the  art-loving  Philip  the  Good  of  Burgundy,  with 
the  title  of  *'  My  lord's  painter  and  varlet."  In  this 
way  he  often  went  on  secret  pilgrimages  for  his 
master,  and  once  sailed  in  a  Venetian  galley  as  far 
as  Lisbon,  in  order  to  negotiate  a  marriage  between 
Philip  and  Isabel  of  Portugal.  He  painted  a  portrait 
of  Isabel,  and  after  a  stay  ot  nine  months  returned 

86 


JAN  VAN  EYCK 

home  with  the  bride.  He  bought  a  house  for  him- 
self in  the  rich  town  of  Bruges,  where  he  Uved  till 
his  death. 

The  great  discovery  made  by  the  two  brothers 
is  one  which  will  make  their  names  for  ever  re- 
nowned. They  were  interested  in  alchemy  and  the 
art  of  distilling  substances,  and  in  this  way  they 
tirst  discovered  a  varnish  which,  applied  to  their 
pictures  in  tempera,  made  their  colours  more  brilliant 
and  lasting.  But  still  more  wonderful  was  their 
second  discovery,  that  colours  mixed  better  with  oil 
than  with  the  white  of  egg.  This  secret,  which 
transformed  the  whole  art  of  painting,  Jan  guarded 
jealously  for  years,  though  artists  flocked  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  to  see  his  work  and  to  find  out 
his  method.  Yet  before  his  death,  he  told  it  to  an 
Italian  painter,  who  carried  the  knowledge  of  it 
south  to  Venice. 

We  do  not  know  certainly  how  much  of  "  The 
Adoration  of  the  Lamb  "  was  Hubert's  work ;  but 
Jan  must  have  painted  the  charming  landscape  in 
which  the  scene  is  placed,  because  he  alone  of  the 
two  had,  on  his  journeys  south,  seen  the  cypress,  the 
olive,  and  the  palm  trees  which  adorn  it. 

But  we  possess  three  pi(5turcs,  signed  and  dated 
by  him,  in  the  National  Gallery.  Two  are  portraits 
of  men.  The  first,  dated  1432,  is  less  well  preserved 
than  the  two  later  ones,  and  is,  indeed,  the  earliest 
ot  all  his  signed  works.    The  sitter's  name  is  given 

87 


EARLY   FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

in  Greek  chara(5ters,  Tymotheos,  or  Timothy,  but 
the  picflure  is  called  "  Leal  Souvenir,"  words  which 
also  form  part  of  the  inscription  on  the  pedestal  in 
front  of  the  pid:ure.  It  represents  a  thin-faced, 
intelligent  man  in  a  furred  robe  and  a  green  chaperon, 
or  hood.  In  the  next  year,  1433,  he  painted  our 
second  portrait,  which  has  been  far  better  preserved. 
This  is  a  man  of  sixty  or  thereabouts,  and  is  mar- 
vellous for  the  realism  of  the  likeness  and  the 
delicacy  of  the  painting.  Round  the  man's  head 
is  a  thick  handkerchief  elaborately  folded,  turban- 
fashion.  The  third  pi(5ture  is  in  a  state  of  perfecft 
preservation,  and  is  his  masterpiece.  It  represents 
Jean  Arnolfini  and  his  wife  Jeanne  de  Chenany, 
standing  facing  each  other  in  a  bedroom  richly 
furnished  and  full  of  fascinating  detail.  The  husband 
is  prim  in  black  and  chocolate  colour;  the  wife 
wears  a  rich  full  robe  of  myrtle  colour,  trimmed 
with  ermine.  The  folds  of  her  drapery  are  a  little 
stiff  and  wanting  in  delicacy,  but  the  little  frilled 
handkerchief  on  her  curiously  arranged  hair  is  quite 
perfe6l  in  texture.  You  must  notice  the  little  convex 
mirror,  on  the  frame  of  which  are  painted  ten  tiny 
pictures — ten  events  from  the  Passion  of  our  Lord. 
Above  the  mirror  is  the  date,  1434.  In  the  glass  you 
see  the  reflecflion  of  four  figures,  the  married  pair 
themselves,  and  the  painter  and  his  wife,  introduced, 
we  suppose,  because  van  Eyck  had  married  the  sister 
of  Jeanne  Arnolfini.  The  fine  brass-work  of  the  chan- 


Jbt 


:■'  'I   n    \ ;  I      ■  i     i  h  \  n    ai:  m  ■;  i  i  ^  , . 
l/'lrr  Ihi'  f'aiiiting  by  Jan  I'lin  I'.vrk,  iimv  in  Ihr  k'liisfr  l'ri,-dri,h  Musi-uin,  Hrrlin. 


^ 


JAN  VAN  EYCK 

delier  is  admirably  given  ;  in  one  socket  a  candle  is 
burning.  Every  detail  in  thepid:ure  is  delightful,  even 
down  to  the  little  griffon  terrier  in  the  foreground, 
and  the  soft,  deep  colours  are  as  perfed:  now  as  on  the 
day  they  were  painted.  The  later  story  of  this  pld:ure 
is  very  curious.  It  is  said  that  the  sister  of  Charles  V., 
Mary,  Governess  of  the  Netherlands,  accepted  it  as 
a  gift  from  her  barber-surgeon  ;  and  in  1815  it  was 
found  by  an  Englishman,  General  Hay,  in  the 
lodgings  in  Brussels  where  he  was  recovering  from 
his  wounds  after  the  Battle  of  Waterloo. 

In  our  illustration  you  will  see  another  portrait 
of  Jean  Arnolfini,  which  is  now  in  Berlin.  This 
time  he  Is  alone,  but  he  is  still  wearing  a  fine  fur- 
lined  coat,  though  instead  of  the  broad-brimmed  hat 
of  our  picfture  In  London,  he  has  a  scarlet  handker- 
chief twisted  in  formal  folds  round  his  sedate,  melan- 
choly face. 

If  you  ever  go  to  Frankfort-on-the-Maine  you 
will  see  In  the  Museum  there  a  charming  *' Virgin 
and  Child  "  by  Jan  van  Eyck.  The  Virgin  Is  seated 
on  a  dais  in  a  comfortable  room,  but  her  chair  is 
throne-like  and  her  attitude  full  of  majesty.  She  Is 
feeding  her  Divine  Child,  who  is  no  lovely  Italian 
Bambino,  but  a  rather  wooden  little  creature.  The 
Flemish  masters,  I  expecft,  rarely  saw  their  babies 
except  tightly  swathed  in  swaddling-bands.  This 
pldure  shows  one  of  van  Evck's  characteristics — 
the  little  sharp  angles  which  he  introduces  into  the 

89 


EARLY  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

folds  of  his  draperies,  copied  probably  from  the 
works  of  the  sculptors  in  wood,  which  he  would 
know  well  from  the  churches  they  had  decorated. 
You  will  notice  also  that  the  hands  of  both  his  men 
and  women  are  exceedingly  long  and  narrow.  He 
liked  to  paint  figures  on  a  very  small  scale,  but 
always  with  perfed:  clearness  and  accuracy. 

For  quite  four  hundred  years  after  their  death 
the  work  of  the  two  van  Eycks  was  entirely 
negle(5ted,  and  when  we  think  of  the  stormy  times 
through  which  the  people  of  the  Netherlands  had 
to  pass  before  they  achieved  their  freedom,  we  can 
only  be  thankful  that  so  much  of  this  beautiful 
period  of  art  still  remains  for  us  to  enjoy. 

Memling  (1430-1490). 

Hans  Memling,  though  he  worked  in  the  Nether- 
lands, was  really  of  German  parentage,  born  at 
Mayence.  We  do  not  know  who  was  his  master, 
nor  much  about  his  life,  except  that  he  was  a  wild 
youth,  who  ran  away  from  home  and  became  a 
common  soldier.  He  was  wounded  in  the  wars,  and 
came,  aged  then  about  thirty,  to  be  nursed  by  the 
good  Sisters  of  the  Hospital  of  S.  John  at  Bruges. 
During  his  recovery  he  passed  his  time  in  drawing 
pi(flures  and  pra(5lising  painting,  in  which  he  suc- 
ceeded so  well  that  he  afterwards  painted,  as  a 
thank-otfering  for  the  Sisters,  the  Shrine  of  S.  Ursula, 

90 


MEMLING 

a  wonderful  piece  ot  work,  which  is  still  preserved 
in  the  Hospital  of  S.  John  at  Bruges.  He  tells  the 
same  story  that  Carpaccio,  you  will  remember, 
illustrated  not  many  years  later  in  Venice,  only  here 
the  story  is  painted  on  the  four  sides  of  a  shrine 
which  contains  the  relics  of  the  Saint  herself  The 
beauty  of  Memling's  pure,  bright  colouring  is  very 
great ;  the  Virgins  have  soft,  lovely  little  faces,  and 
the  men-at-arms  in  the  scene  of  S.  Ursula's  martyr- 
dom handle  their  swords  and  strongbows  with  great 
precision.  Memling  knew  just  how  they  would  do 
it  ;  he  had  seen  them  on  many  a  battle-field.  The 
Convent  nearly  lost  its  marvellous  Shrine  when  the 
French  soldiers  entered  Bruges  at  the  time  of  the 
French  Revolution.  It  was  only  saved  by  the  nuns' 
ignorance  of  the  French  language,  which  made 
them  really  unable  to  recognize  the  treasure  for 
which  their  rough  enemies  were  so  energetically 
shouting. 

We  have  a  "  Virgin  and  Infant  Christ  "  by  Mem- 
ling  in  the  National  Gallery,  a  brilliant  piece  of  work, 
painted  on  a  panel.  The  Virgin,  with  her  high  fore- 
head and  wavy  hair,  sits  under  a  crimson  canopy  ; 
behind  her  is  a  curtain  of  rich  brocade.  The  Child 
Jesus  has  His  little  hand  on  the  open  page  of  her 
missal,  but  He  is  turning  aside  to  listen  to  the  winning 
little  Angel,  who,  kneeling,  is  playing  to  Him  on 
a  lute.  In  the  front  of  the  picture  the  donor 
kneels  in  robes  of  peace,   hut   wearing   his  sword. 

9^ 


EARLY  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

Behind  him  stands  S.  George,  bareheaded,  though 
in  armour  of  steel ;  the  grisly  dragon  lies  at  his 
feet.  In  the  background  is  a  walled  garden  with 
grass-plots,  and  a  distant  view  of  a  river-mouth  on 
which  a  sailing-vessel  and  fishing-boats  are  visible. 

Our  illustration  shows  us  the  portrait  of  an  old 
man,  now  in  Cologne.  It  is  an  excellent  example 
of  Memling's  painstaking,  truthful  work ;  you  see 
every  furrow  on  the  sitter's  brow,  the  red  rims  to 
his  aged  eyes,  the  hairs  on  his  stubbly  chin,  the 
wrinkles  on  his  quiet,  folded  hands.  But  these  details 
are  not  unduly  insisted  upon  ;  nor  does  he  for  a 
moment  allow  you  to  lose  sight  of  the  true  objed: 
of  every  good  portrait,  the  delineation  of  the  sitter's 
chara(fler,  and,  especially  in  the  faces  of  the  old,  the 
result  of  that  characfler  on  the  expression  of  the  face. 

Memling  painted,  as  I  have  said,  many  altar- 
pieces  and  religious  works,  always  in  the  same  pure, 
devout  spirit.  He  has  been  called  the  Fra  Angelico 
of  Flanders.  If  you  remember  what  you  have  read 
of  the  Florentine's  work  you  will  see  that  the 
resemblance  is  one  of  spirit,  and  not  of  execution. 
With  regard  to  his  method  of  painting,  he  was 
undoubtedly  helped  by  the  discoveries  and  by 
the  pid:ures  of  the  van  Eycks,  who  had  founded 
a  school,  and  whose  pupils  were  carrying  on  their 
traditions;  but  Memling  had  an  originality  of  his 
own,  and  in  his  turn  held  high  the  torch  ot  know- 
ledge, ready  to  light  those  who  came  after  him. 

92 


r.<klK.\ll     l>l     A.N    "..l.    MA.\. 
KAfIrr  ilu-  f>,iiittiit^  hv  //.»</>■  Mrmtiiic.  ii<Kf  in  //'••  (if>f»-»lirim    Cotlrrlion,  Co/ogiir.) 


CHAPTER   II 

Breughel  (d.    1625). 

Breughel  was  a  Flemish  artist,  born  forty  years 
after  the  death  of  Memling,  and  nicknamed  "  Peasant 
Breughel."  You  may  easily  distinguish  him  from 
the  artists  of  all  other  countries,  because  he  first 
painted  peasant  life  for  its  own  sake,  drawing  wide 
landscapes  from  his  own  out-of-door  sketches,  and 
setting  in  them  scenes  enacted  by  very  small  figures. 
He  was  born  in  a  Flemish  village,  and  his  parents 
were  humble  village-folk.  Thus  he  knew  peasant 
ways  from  childhood :  he  had  watched  them  walk- 
ing in  their  fields,  dancing  at  their  feasts;  he  knew 
how  the  seasons  passed  in  quiet  country  places,  and, 
above  all,  he  had  been  inspired  by  the  surpassing 
beauty  of  the  country  in  winter,  when  the  snow  lies 
in  unbroken  whiteness  over  the  meadow-lands,  and 
the  delicate  tracery  of  the  bared  trees  is  black  against 
the  cold  grey  of  the  skies.  Our  illustration  shows 
one  of  these  scenes,  and  is  the  most  perfedl  example 
of  his  work.  The  picture  is  now  in  Vienna,  and 
nowhere  is  the  poetry  of  the  snow-clad  world  more 
exquisitely  shown.  On  the  frozen  ponds  the  skaters 
exercise   their   skill ;    in  front  of  the  inn-door  the 

93 


EARLY   FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

hunters  start  for  the  chase,  followed  by  their  eager, 
snuffling  dogs  ;  the  brambles  in  the  foreground  lift 
long  tendrils  with  their  few  withered  leaves ;  the 
hungry  birds  chatter  in  the  trees;  behind  are  the 
distant  hills  with  their  snowy  tops. 

Another  of  his  pi(ftures,  "The  Peasant  Wedding," 
is  now  in  Vienna ;  the  figures  here  are  on  a  larger 
scale  than  in  our  illustration.  They  cross  the  scene 
in  a  merry  procession  of  mock  solemnity  with  the 
musicians ;  all  is  fun  and  gaiety,  represented  with 
perfect  naturalness,  yet  so  freshly,  that  it  at  once 
arrests  our  attention  and  strikes  our  imagination. 

Sometimes  Breughel  painted  larger  pi(5lures, 
"just  for  fun,"  as  it  seems  to  us.  An  example  of 
this  kind  is  at  Naples,  illustrating  the  text  from 
S.  Matthew:  "If  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  shall 
they  not  both  fall  into  the  ditch .?"  The  poor  blind 
fellows  are  groping  their  way,  six  of  them,  in  single 
file,  across  a  flat,  dull  meadow.  They  hold  on  to 
one  another  by  the  shoulder  or  with  their  sticks; 
the  leader  has  just  fallen  on  his  back  into  a  ditch 
full  of  water. 

The  whole  work  of  Breughel  shows  an  origin- 
ality and  power  of  imagination  that  give  him  a 
place  quite  by  himself  at  the  time  in  which  he  lived. 
Later  on,  there  were  many  masters  who  cared  to 
paint  the  same  sort  of  subjects,  yet  never  quite  in 
his  fashion.  He  stands  alone,  and  for  that  reason  I 
want  you  to  remember  him  and  to  notice  carefully 

94 


X  < 


5^    ^ 


BREUGHEL 

the  few  pi(5lures  by  him  which  still  exist.  He  is,  in 
this  isolated  position,  a  connec^ting-link  between  the 
earlier  Flemish  artists  who  conscientiously  painted 
pictures  of  realistic  simplicity,  and  Rubens,  who, 
coming  a  generation  later,  painted  his  hne  romantic 
compositions  with  so  much  breadth. 

Breughel  is  the  incarnation  of  Flemish  art,  freed 
from  the  conventions  of  its  earlier  masters  and  un- 
touched by  any  outside  influence.  He  cut  himself 
loose  from  the  teaching  of  any  schools,  and  no 
better  motto  can  be  found  for  his  work  than  the 
words  he  proudly  wrote  under  each  one  of  the 
many  sketches,  preserved  in  collections  all  over 
Europe — "from  life." 

His  son,  Peter  Breughel,  was  a  painter  too,  and 
carried  on  his  father's  ideas  so  faithfully  it  is  often 
uncertain  by  which  of  the  two  a  picture  was  painted. 
The  younger  man  is  well  represented  at  Antwerp, 
where  you  will  especially  see  '*  The  Adoration  of 
the  Magi  "  and  "  The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents," 
two  winter  scenes,  placing  these  sacred  events  in 
the  setting  of  a  small  Flemish  village,  with  every 
circumstance  of  its  daily  life  accurately  represented. 


95 


PART  III 
THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

The  German  art  of  this  period  was  distinguished 
for  its  fine  drawing,  its  stern  love  of  truth,  and  its 
power  of  invention,  by  which  it  presented  in  a  fresh, 
interesting  way  well-known  scenes  from  sacred  or 
allegorical  subjeds.  The  Germans  had  always  a 
strong  love  of  the  fantastic,  and  they  chose  such 
themes  as  best  gave  scope  to  this  side  of  their  art. 
Thus  you  see  frequently  illustrations  by  them  of  the 
mystical  scenes  in  the  Book  of  the  Revelation,  or 
they  would  paint  a  series  of  pi(flures,  showing  in  a 
grim  procession  the  "  Dance  of  Death,"  a  favourite 
subjed:  in  the  later  Middle  Ages.  The  painters 
found  few  patrons  among  the  great  people  in  their 
country,  for  there  was  nothing  like  general  educa- 
tion, and  neither  the  nobles  nor  the  burghers  had 
learnt  to  care  for  beauty  in  art,  or  to  think  about 
the  decoration  of  their  houses.  Albrecht  Diirer,  it 
is  true,  received  commissions  for  work  from  various 
German  Princes,  but  the  great  Holbein  had  to  leave 
his  country  and  seek  prosperity  in  England.  In 
the  meantime,  more  serious  for  the  painters  than 

97  " 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

this  lack  of  sympathy  in  high  quarters,  the  Reforma- 
tion had  spread  through  the  greater  part  of  the 
country,  and  the  Church  no  longer  called  for  a 
constant  supply  of  religious  pictures  to  hang  over 
its  altars  and  adorn  its  chapels.  In  the  towns  still 
remaining  faithful  to  Rome,  and  in  the  few  wealthy 
houses  where  pid:ures  wxre  bought,  people  preferred 
to  acquire  copies  from  the  work  of  Italian  masters, 
or  pictures  by  native  artists  conceived  in  the  same 
familiar  manner.  It  was,  as  you  see,  an  unfavour- 
able soil,  but  none  the  less  German  art  flourished 
and  grew  into  a  plant  of  amazing  healthiness,  as 
you  will  hear. 


98 


CHAPTER    I 

Albrecht  DiJRER  (1471-1528). 

About  twenty  years  before  Memling's  death,  there 
was  born  in  the  city  of  Nuremberg  the  painter 
Albrecht  Diirer.  He  was  the  third  child  of  the 
goldsmith  Diirer,  who  had  in  all  eighteen  children, 
and  had  travelled  from  his  native  Hungary  to  settle 
in  Germany,  in  that  Nuremberg  which  you  will 
find  to-day  looking,  with  its  gabled  houses  and 
quaint,  narrow  streets,  much  as  it  must  have  looked 
to  the  small  Albrecht  so  many  years  ago.  He  was 
a  good  son;  from  the  two  beautiful  portraits  which 
he  painted  of  the  old  man,  we  see  in  what  high 
honour  he  held  his  father,  and  he  was  often  heard 
to  regret  that  of  his  mother  he  only  made  one 
drawing  shortly  before  her  death.  At  first  Diirer 
followed  his  father's  craft,  but  he  was  soon  allowed 
to  apprentice  himself  to  an  artist  of  the  town. 
Then  followed  what  the  Germans  call  *'  Wandcr- 
jahre,"  or  years  of  travel  for  purposes  of  study. 
These  were  fruitful  vears  for  Diirer,  and  when  he 
came  home  he  was  able  to  set  up  in  a  house  and 
with  a  wife  of  his  own.  This  wife,  Agnes  Frey,was, 
however,  a    disagreeable,  shrewish  woman,  pious, 

99 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

narrow,  and  grasping.  She  urged  him  to  work  hard 
for  the  sake  of  the  money,  and,  according  to  one  of 
his  friends,  shortened  his  life  by  this  perpetual  over- 
working of  him.  For  work  he  did,  early  and  late, 
taking  advantage  of  the  newly  invented  art  of 
printing,  which  included  the  art  of  reproducing 
illustrations  to  books  by  the  help  of  woodcuts. 
This  method  of  making  money  pleased  the  cupidity 
of  Durer's  wife,  for  it  was  a  quick  process ;  he  had 
only  to  draw  what  his  fertile  brain  suggested  upon 
wood,  and  then  the  wood-carvers  cut  his  blocks  for 
him,  and  the  printers  printed  them,  and  at  once 
there  was  a  pid:ure  fit  for  a  book,  or,  as  it  was 
usually  of  some  sacred  subjedt,  ready  to  be  sold  at 
the  church-door.  He  made  a  set  of  illustrations, 
too,  of  the  Book  of  the  Revelation,  which  he  chose 
because  the  beasts  and  mythical  personages  gave  free 
play  to  his  love  of  drawing  strange,  fantastic  obje6ls. 
For  his  work  leads  you  into  a  wild,  strange  fairy- 
land, a  world  of  great,  dark,  romantic  forests,  such 
as  he  would  have  seen  on  his  travels  in  South 
Germany ;  through  them  stray  a  marvellous  com- 
pany— Kings  and  Princesses,  knights  in  armour, 
goblins,  dogs  and  horses,  stags  and  dragons.  Peasants 
he  shows  you,  too,  going  soberly  to  market,  or 
dancing  with  rustic  violence  at  a  fair,  or  leaning 
against  a  tree  and  playing  the  bagpipes.  Such 
sights,  and  others  more  charming  still,  he  shows  us 
in  his  woodcuts  and  engravings,  courtyards  of  great 

lOO 


ALBRECHT  DURER 

farmhouses,  with  wonderful  wells  for  drawing 
water,  and  medieval  towns,  their  fortifications  and 
turrets  fantastically  piled,  covering  a  hillside.  He 
drew  whole  sets  ot  illustrations  for  the  Life  of  the 
Virgin  and  for  the  Passion  of  our  Lord.  One  of 
them  is  called  "  The  Green  Passion,"  because  the 
drawings  were  made  on  green  paper.  The  three 
best  known,  perhaps,  of  his  copper  engravings  are 
his  '*  S.  Eustace,"  his  "  Melancholia,"  and  his 
"  Knight,  Death,  and  the  Devil."  In  the  first,  the 
good  knight  has  dismounted  from  his  horse,  and 
kneels  devoutly  to  the  stag,  bearing  the  Crucifix  on 
its  antlers.  In  the  distance  a  delightful  castle  crowns 
a  wooded  hill.  Melancholia  is  a  winged  woman 
who  sits  lost  in  heavy,  brooding  thought,  though 
surrounded  by  all  the  symbols  of  various  human 
adiivities,  the  mason's  and  carpenter's  tools,  the 
architect's  compass,  the  mathematician's  table  of 
numbers.  The  Knight  with  his  grisly  companions 
rides  through  a  rock-strewn  forest;  Death  bears  his 
hour-glass;  and  the  horned  Devil  his  pitchfork. 
On  a  peak  in  the  distance  we  get  a  glimpse  of 
another  little  fortified  town,  charmingly  indicated. 
Diirer  knew  such  scenery  well  from  his  travels  in 
the  Tyrol,  and  if  you  compare  his  landscapes  with 
those  of  Memling,  you  will  see  how  far  less  real  are 
Memling's  mountains,  for  he  at  best  knew  only  the 
vine-clad  hills  around  his  native  town. 

Diirer  went  twice  to  Venice;  the  second  time  he 

lOI 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

borrowed  the  money  for  the  journey  from  a  friend 
in  Nuremberg,  to  whom  he  wrote  ten  letters, 
relating  all  the  events  of  his  life  in  Venice.  He 
found  Giovanni  Bellini  *'  very  old,  and  to  this  day 
the  best  of  all,  as  far  as  painting  goes."  Bellini  liked 
DUrer's  work  too,  we  learn,  and  praised  him 
*'  openly  and  highly  in  the  presence  of  noblemen." 
Diirer  got  a  commission  from  the  German  mer- 
chants living  in  Venice  to  paint  an  altar-piece.  He 
writes  a  letter  about  it,  full  of  fun  and  cheerfulness. 
"  My  picture  sends  greeting,  and  would  give  a 
ducat  to  be  seen  by  you.  My  French  cloak  sends  its 
best  regards,  and  so  does  my  Italian  cloak."  In  his 
last  letter,  he  laments  leaving  Venice  :  *'  Oh,  how  I 
shall  starve  for  lack  of  this  sun  !  here  I  am  a  gentle- 
man !"  he  cries,  referring  to  the  superior  position 
held  by  painters  in  art-loving  Venice,  so  different 
from  the  scanty  recognition  bestowed  on  them  in 
Germany. 

Diirer  has  left  many  portraits  of  great  excellence, 
besides  those  I  have  mentioned  of  his  own  family. 
The  portrait  of  himself  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine, 
with  the  curiously  curled  hair,  now  at  Munich,  is 
well  known  ;  less  familiar  is  one  he  painted  of  him- 
self rather  earlier,  which  is  now  in  Madrid.  He 
wears  a  boldly  striped  cap  over  his  tiowing  curls, 
and  through  an  open  window  a  river  and  snow- 
topped  mountains  are  visible.  In  Madrid,  too,  is  a 
fine  portrait  by  him  of  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life, 

1 02 


I'KIKAir    Ol     TIIK    KMPI.ROR    MAMMIIIW. 
(Frjiti  the t'aiillin^  !-\   .llbitilit  liiirfi  nl  I'lrmni.i 


ALBRECHT  DURER 

strong-willed    and    a   little   frowning.    He    wears   a 
velvet  coat  with   a   great   fur  collar,    and   a   broad 
black  velvet    hat,  well    planted    on    his   short   and 
curling  hair.  Our  illustration  is  from  the  portrait  of 
the   Emperor     Maximilian.   A   drawing    exists  for 
this  portrait,  on  which  Diirer  has  written,  "  This  is 
Emperor  Maximilian,  him  have  I,  Albrecht  Diirer, 
portrayed  at  Augsburg  up  in  his  little  room  in   the 
castle,  in  the  year    1518,  on  Monday  after  S.  John 
the  Baptist's  Day."  To  the  right  of  the  pi61:ure,just 
below  the  peak  of  the  Emperor's  hat,  is  the  painter's 
chara(!:teristic    signature,    the    large   A   with    the   D 
inside;    this    you    will  see  on  all   his   engravings, 
sometimes   in    the    most    ingenious    places,   as,   tor 
example,  in  a  Nativity,   where,  at   the  top   of  an 
immensely  tall  house,  from  a  gable,  a  little  sign- 
board swings,  bearing  signature  and  date   upon   it. 
The  Emperor  is  represented  with  an  open  pome- 
granate in  his  hand  ;  he  wears  a  fur-lined  coat  with 
a  deep-hanging  collar,  and  on  his  cap  is  a  medal  ol 
the    Virgin   and   Child,    such   as   people  frequently 
wore  in  those  days.  It   is  a  wonderful  portrait  ot  a 
proud    ruler,    experienced    and   keen    in  judgment, 
with   grey   hair,  critical  eyes,    and   thin,   tirm  lips. 
But  under  that  kingly  presence  Maximilian   is  said 
to  have  had  a  genial  disposition,  and  to  have  adored 
all  manly  sports ;   his  people   called  him   **  the   first 
knight  of  his  age."   He  was  fifty-nine  at   the   time 
this  portrait  was  made,  and  he  died  the  next  year, 

103 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

1 5 19.  He  was  succeeded  by  Charles  V.,  Titian's 
patron.  When  on  his  travels  in  1520,  Diirer  saw 
the  coronation  of  the  new  Emperor  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle.  It  was  on  this  same  journey  that  he  went 
to  see  the  famous  van  Eyck  altar-piece  at  Ghent ; 
he  praised  it  heartily,  but  did  not  forget  to  make  a 
note  of  the  fact  that  he  saw  in  the  same  town  some 
lions  at  a  show  which  interested  him  exceedingly. 

This  was  the  time  that  Luther's  teaching  was 
tearing  the  religious  world  asunder.  Diirer  never  re- 
nounced Catholicism,  but  he  was  deeply  interested  in 
the  new  tenets, and  the  last  years  of  his  life  were  given 
up  to  controversies  on  the  subject.  When  he  died  in 
1528,  in  the  house  in  Niiremberg  which  is  still 
piously  preserved  to  his  honour,  there  was  a  great 
outburst  of  grief  throughout  Germany.  In  Italy,  too, 
his  name  was  reverenced.  Raphael  had  exchanged 
pidiures  with  him,  and  it  is  recorded  that  he  said  of 
him  :  "  Indeed,  Diirer  would  surpass  us  all  if  he, 
like  us,  were  to  have  continually  the  works  of  the  old 
masters  before  him."  But  we  cannot  join  in  this 
regret :  Diirer  stands  by  himself;  his  mysterious 
pidures  stir  our  imaginations  ;  their  fantastic,  tender 
details  charm  us  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  old 
German  fairy-stories  and  legends.  The  work  he  has 
left  behind  in  such  quantities  can  hold  its  own 
against  the  work  of  the  greatest  of  the  world's 
artists,  and  need  not  fear  by  the  comparison. 

104 


CRANACH 

Cranach  (1472-1553). 

If  Diirer  was  the  painter  of  a  Catholicism  at  war 
within  her  own  borders,  Cranach  may  be  called  the 
painter  ot  the  Reformation.  He  was  a  close  friend 
of  Luther,  whose  portrait,  together  with  that  of  the 
reformer  Melanchthon  and  of  himself,  he  introduced 
into  his  "  Crucifixion  "  in  the  parish  church  at 
Weimar.  Alter  Diirer,  Cranach  is  certainly  the  best- 
known  artist  of  his  time  in  Germany.  He  painted 
charming  pictures  in  peculiarly  clear  colours  and 
with  great  imaginative  skill.  We  have  now  in  the 
National  Gallery,  recently  presented  by  Lady 
Carlisle,  a  very  good  example  of  his  delightful 
manner,  a  figure  of  Charity,  a  naked  woman 
holding  a  little  child  in  her  arms,  while  another 
plays  with  a  quaintly  dressed  doll  at  her  feet.  In  the 
same  style  is  a  "  Venus  and  Cupid  "  in  the  Gallery 
at  Munich.  The  delicate  gold  hair  of  the  goddess,  her 
gold  necklace,  and  the  gold  band  round  her  waist  are 
marvels  of  ornamental  work  ;  the  tiny  winged  Cupid 
is  mounted  on  a  box  to  make  him  tall  enough 
almost  to  reach  his  mother's  down-stretched  finger- 
tip. Black,  white,  gold,  grey  are  the  harmonies  of 
this  delicious  composition,  and,  standing  out  from 
their  background  of  dead  black,  the  figures  are  full 
of  an  airy  charm  and  lightness.  On  many  of  his 
pictures  you  may  see  his  artist's  mark,  a  black 
snake,  with   two  black  bat's  wings,  a  red  coronet, 

105 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

and,  in  the  snake's  mouth,  a  golden  ring  with  a 
ruby  in  it,  the  arms  given  to  Cranach  by  the 
Electors  of  Saxony,  under  three  of  whom  he  held 
office  as  Court  painter.  He  was  sent  by  one  of  them 
to  Diirer's  patron,  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  and 
painted  for  him  little  Prince  Charles,  afterwards 
Charles  V.,  then  aged  eight  years. 

Later  in  his  life  Cranach  settled  in  Wittenberg, 
where  he  bought  an  apothecary's  shop  and  a  licence 
for  selling  sweet  wines.  He  kept  a  printing-  and  a 
book-shop  too,  and  a  studio  for  apprentices,  which 
was,  in  fadt,  almost  a  picture- factory,  and  there  he 
made  sketches  and  designs  for  his  pupils  to  copy. 

Titian,  you  may  remember,  painted  ;i  picture  of 
Charles  V.  at  the  Battle  of  MUhlberg  :  it  was  at  that 
battle  that  Cranach's  patron,  the  Elector  of  Saxony, 
was  taken  prisoner  and  carried  to  Innsbriick.  The 
painter  shared  his  master's  captivity,  which  lasted 
five  years,  and  when  the  Eled:or  was  at  last  set  free, 
he  took  this  faithful  friend  back  with  him  to  his 
Court  at  Weimar,  where  Cranach  died  in  1554. 

There  has  lately  been  exhibited  in  London  a 
'*  Melancholia,"  by  Cranach,  from  a  private  collec- 
tion. It  is  interesting  to  compare  it  with  Diirer's 
pi(^ture  on  the  same  subjec^l:.  Cranach's  Melancholy 
is  a  younger  woman,  without  the  fairy  grace  of  his 
Venus,  but  with  a  curious  charm  in  her  round,  dis- 
contented face.  She  sits,  in  her  light  red  dress,  with 
brooding  eyes,  self-absorbed  and   regardless  of  the 

106 


CRANACH 

world  around.  She  whittles  a  stick,  while  little 
Cupids  play  unheeded  with  a  dog  at  her  feet,  and 
the  wine  stands  untouched  on  the  table.  To  the  left 
a  cloud  of  curious  creatures  float  upwards,  a  real 
witches'  Sabbath  of  hobgoblins  and  demons,  and 
banners  ornamented  with  frogs  and  eels.  It  is 
dated  1528  and  bears  Cranach's  device,  the  black- 
winged  serpent. 

You  will  see  pictures  by  Cranach  in  many 
museums  and  galleries  all  over  Europe,  and  they 
will  never  fail  to  interest  you,  because  of  the  fresh 
manner,  full  of  poetry  and  charm,  with  which  he 
treats  familiar  subje6ts  from  sacred  or  legendary 
lore. 


107 


CHAPTER  II 

Holbein  (1497-1543). 

Holbein  the  Younger,  sometimes  called  the  "in- 
scrutable painter,"  was  the  son  of  a  man,  himself  a 
well-known  painter,  and  was  born  at  the  imperial 
city  of  Augsburg.  He  was  taught  the  beginnings  of 
his  art  by  his  father,  but  he  went  early  to  Basel, 
intending  to  earn  his  living  there  by  drawing  for 
the  booksellers  of  that  town,  already  famous  for 
their  printing  of  illustrated  books.  Basel,  picturesque 
on  the  swift-flowing  Rhine,  is  still  proud  of  the 
great  artist,  who  for  thirteen  years  worked  within 
its  walls,  and  when  you  go  there  one  day  on  your 
way  to  the  Swiss  mountains,  you  must  go  to  see  his 
drawings,  religiously  guarded  in  the  town  museum. 
Holbein  did  a  great  deal  of  work  during  those  early 
years  at  Basel ;  he  painted  portraits,  decorated 
houses  and  the  doors  of  organ-lofts,  made  altar-pieces, 
and  painted  frescoes  for  the  town  hall.  But  the  piece 
of  work  which  changed  the  whole  current  ot  his 
life  was  the  portrait  he  painted  there  of  the  great 
scholar  Erasmus,  who  was  staying  at  the  house  of 
his  friend  Froben,  the  printer.  Erasmus  was  a 
Dutchman,  whose  name  is  a  classical  rendering  of 

108 


HOLBEIN 

"'The  Beloved  One";  he  was  at  this  time  Professor 
of  Divinity  and  Greek  to  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, and  did  more  than  any  other  man  to  advance 
the    revival    of  learning    throughout    Europe.    He 
worked  ardently  for  the  reform  of  theology,  and  he 
was  a  sincere  lover  of  the  arts.   His  portrait  pleased 
him  so  well  that  he  sent  it  to  his  friend,  Sir  Thomas 
More,    upon    which    he    received     a    letter    from 
England:  "Your  painter,  my  dear  Erasmus,  is  an 
admirable  artist,"   and   in   due    time   Holbein    was 
invited  to  Sir  Thomas's  famous  house  at  Chelsea. 
There  he  stayed  happily,  painting  portraits  of  his 
host,    his   family,    and    his   friends.   More's   friends 
were,  as  you  may  suppose,  men   known  to  fame. 
And  amongst  these  portraits  you  find  the  Treasurer 
of  England,  Sir  Bryan   Tuke ;  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,    Wareham ;     the    Astronomer     Royal, 
Nicholas   Kratzer ;    to   name  only  a  few  of  them. 
Unfortunately  the  original  of  Sir  Thomas  More  and 
his   family    has  been   lost,  but   in    the   museum  at 
Basel  there  is  a  sketch  made  for  it,  probably  given 
to  Erasmus.   All  this  time  Holbein's  work  had  been 
kept  a  secret  from  the  King,  More's  master,  who 
would  not  have  scrupled  to  have  secured  the  painter's 
time  for  hij  own  use  alone.   When,  however,  after 
about   three   years'   time   the   King  was   invited    to 
Chelsea  to  view  the  pictures,  Henry  VHI.  expressed 
his  royal  pleasure  in   them,  forgave  his  Chancellor 
his  secrecy,  and  at  once  engaged  the  artist  to  paint 

109 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

his  portrait  and  those  of  his  children.  One  portrait 
of  the  King  was  painted  for  the  Company  of 
Barber-Surgeons,  with  the  Master  of  the  Company 
kneeHng  at  his  feet,  petitioning  for  the  royal 
licence  in  a  tapestry-hung  room  of  the  palace.  The 
pi(5lure  is  finished  with  delicate  elaboration;  you  see 
the  well-trimmed  beards  of  the  members  of  the 
Company,  their  flowered  and  embroidered  robes, 
their  jewelled  fingers  and  chains  of  gold.  Many 
years  later,  in  1668,  after  the  Great  Fire,  Pepys,  in 
his  Diary,  writes  :  "  After  dinner  to  Chyrugeons' 
Hall  to  see  their  great  picture  of  Holbein's,  thinking 
to  have  bought  it  for  a  little  money.  I  did  think  to 
give  X^2oo  for  it,  it  being  worth  ^1,000  ;  but  it  is 
so  spoiled  that  I  have  no  mind  to  it,  and  is  not  a 
pleasant,  though  a  good,  pid:ure."  Luckily  Pepys' 
plan  fell  through  and  the  pid:ure  hangs  in  their  hall 
to  this  day. 

In  the  National  Gallery  we  now  have  two  pictures 
by  Holbein,  both  purchased  within  recent  years, 
although  England  is  richer  in  his  portraits  than  any 
other  country,  and  possesses  upwards  of  seventy  in 
various  private  colled:ions.  The  first  purchased  is 
signed  and  dated,  1533.  It  is  called  "The  Ambas- 
sadors," and  shows  two  gentlemen  of  the  period 
standing  on  a  floor  paved  with  marble  and  mosaic 
and  arranged  in  geometrical  patterns.  Both  men 
have  a  solid,  mature  look,  though  their  ages,  given 
in  the  picture  itself,  are  only  twenty-nine  and  twenty- 

IIO 


HOLBEIN 

five  respeftively.  One  wears  the  order  of  S.  Michael, 
but  it  is  not  known  for  certain  whom  they  repre- 
sent. From  a  manuscript  found  not  long  ago  in 
France,  it  is,  however,  possible  that  they  were  two 
Frenchmen — the  one,  Jean  de  Dinteville,  Ambas- 
sador from  the  Court  of  Fran9ois  I.  to  that  of 
Henry  VIII.,  in  the  years  1532  and  1533;  the 
other  George  de  Selve,  Ambassador  to  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.  All  around  them  lie  mathematical  in- 
struments; there  is  also  a  globe  and  a  lute.  Most 
curious  of  all,  and  proof  of  Holbein's  skill  in  per- 
spective, is  an  elongated  image  of  a  skull,  stretched 
out  in  front  of  them. 

The  second  pifture,  acquired  not  long  ago  by  the 
National  Gallery,  is  connecfled  with  one  of  the 
King's  many  attempts  at  marriage.  Before  I  tell  you 
about  it,  it  must  be  recorded  that  when  his  marriage 
with  Anne  Boleyn  was  celebrated  with  great  pomp, 
the  Company  of  German  Merchants  in  England,  in 
honour  of  her  coronation,  commissioned  Holbein 
to  paint  two  large  pi(5tures,  "The  Triumph  of 
Riches"  and  "The  Triumph  of  Poverty,"  for  their 
banqueting-hall.  The  grouping  of  these  processional 
pidlures,  as  seen  from  his  designs,  reminds  us  of  the 
"Triumphs"  of  Mantegna,  but  the  figures,  less 
statuesque  and  romantic,  have  more  of  the  round- 
ness and  charm  of  Raphael.  After  Jane  Seymour's 
death  in  1537,  Holbein  was  sent  with  the  English 
Ambassador  by  the  King  to  Brussels,  to  paint  the 

1 1 1 


THE  GERMAN   PAINTERS 

portrait  of  Christina,  the  sixteen-year-old  widow  of 
the  Duke  of  Milan,  as  Henry  wished  to  marry  her 
if  her  face  pleased  him.  Christina  could  only  spare 
Holbein  three  hours  for  the  sitting,  but  our  second 
picflure  in  the  National  Gallery  is  based  on  that 
sketch,  and  shows,  as  you  see  from  the  illustration, 
the  tall  handsome  girl  in  her  demure  widow's  hood, 
wearing  her  richly  furred  robes  with  fine  effe(5l  in  all 
the  pride  of  her  firm,  young  dignity.  She  pleased  the 
Ambassador  by  her  "honest  countenance  and  her 
few  words,  wisely  spoken,"  but  her  own  inclination 
towards  the  marriage  seemed  very  uncertain.  All 
that  she  would  say  was  :  *'  You  know  I  am  the 
Emperor's  poor  servant,  and  must  follow  his 
pleasure."  She  was,  in  fad:,  niece  to  the  great 
Emperor  Charles  V.,  who  absolutely  refused  his 
consent  to  the  marriage,  so  Holbein  went  to  the 
Court  of  a  very  different  lady,  Anne  of  Cleves,  and 
Henry  missed  the  opportunity  of  mating  with  his 
peer.  You  may  see  Holbein's  portrait  of  the 
Duchess,  Anne  of  Cleves,  in  the  Louvre. 

Henry  VHI.  knew  how  to  appreciate  the  art  of 
his  painters.  A  good  story  is  told  of  the  manner  in 
which  he  treated  the  complaints  of  one  of  his  noble- 
men, who  had  i:)een  roughly  handled  by  Holbein 
when  he  one  day  tried  to  force  his  way  into  the 
studio.  The  King  refused  to  blame  his  painter. 
"  Do  you  think,"  he  said  to  the  Earl,  "  that  I  care 
so  little  for  the  man  ?   I  tell  you,  I  can  make  seven 

I  12 


HOLBEIN 

earls  out  of  seven  peasants  if  it  so  please  me,  but  out 
of  seven  earls  not  a  single  Holbein." 

Holbein  did  not  paint  only  portraits  for  his 
master.  We  are  told  how  Inigo  Jones,  the  great 
architecft,  once  showed  a  German  guest  a  book  in 
the  King's  cabinet  quite  full  of  drawings,  which 
Holbein  had  prepared  for  the  King,  with  designs 
for  all  manner  of  poniards  and  trinkets;  sword-chains 
and  belts,  buttons  for  the  royal  mantle,  buckles  for 
his  shoes,  and  covers  for  his  books ;  spoons  and 
forks,  knife-handles,  salt-cellars,  and  drinking-vessels. 
Nothing  was  too  small  to  be  enriched  and  dignified 
by  his  noble  art. 

In  his  young  days  at  Basel  Holbein  had  painted 
a  famous  *'  Dance  of  Death,"  in  which  he  sliowed 
with  terrible  irony  how  Death  the  Conqueror  comes 
at  last  to  each  one  of  us,  from  the  King  and  the 
Emperor  down  to  the  beggar  at  the  gate.  It  is  a 
grotesque  and  grisly  dance,  quite  unlike  the  calm 
grandeur  of  DiArer's  Knight  riding  serenely  with 
Death  and  the  Devil.  It  is  curious  to  note  that 
Holbein  was  himself  suddenly  snatched  away  by 
death  in  his  most  horrible  shape.  He  died  in 
London  of  the  plague,  and  his  body  was  cast  into  a 
common  grave,  as  had  to  be  done  in  cases  of  that 
terrible  sickness.  "  He  left  this  frail  world,"  we  are 
told,  "  in  which  everything  is  but  ephemeral,"  and 
no  one,  in  spite  of  much  searching,  could  discover 
in  which   church   he  was   buried.   "  But,"  adds  the 

113  » 


THE  GERMAN  PAINTERS 

chronicler,  "  a  noble  and  praiseworthy  monument 
has  been  erected  to  his  memory  in  the  living  gratitude 
of  all  lovers  of  art,  which  will  continue  longer  than 
marble;  the  praise  of  which  will  go  on  growing, 
like  the  evergreen  laurel,  down  to  unthinkable 
ages." 


114 


PART  IV 
LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

CHAPTER  I 

Just  as  the  seventeenth  century  was  beginning  a 
great  political  change  took  place  in  the  Spanish 
Netherlands,  which  correspond  roughly  to  Flanders, 
or  our  modern  Belgium.  The  yoke  of  Spain  was 
thrown  off,  and  the  Archduke  Albert  and  his  wife, 
Isabel,  reigned  over  what  was,  to  all  practical  pur- 
poses, an  independent  state.  They  were  lovers 
and  generous  patrons  of  the  arts,  and  they  welcomed 
especially  painters  to  their  Court,  giving  them  full 
scope  for  their  abilities  in  designing  pageants, 
painting  portraits,  and  decorative  pid:urcs  for  their 
palaces. 

The  list  of  well-known  painters  who  must  be 
included  in  this  school  is  not  a  long  one.  Antonius 
Mor  ( I  5  1 9- 1  576)  was  born  in  Utrecht,  but  he  lived 
mostly  in  Antwerp.  He  went  to  England  for  a 
time,  and  was  patronized  by  Queen  Mary.  You  may 
see  a  "  Portrait  of  a  Man  "  by  him  in  the  National 


LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

Gallery,  showing  a  fine,  middle-aged  face,  strong 
and  thoughtful,  set  in  the  frilled  rutf  of  the  period. 
Within  a  year  of  Mor's  death  was  born  the 
second  painter  of  this  group,  the  great  Rubens; 
twenty  years  later  came  Van  Dyck. 

Rubens  (1577- 1640). 

Peter  Paul  Rubens  was  born  on  June  29,  1577, 
on  the  day  of  those  Saints  whose  tw^o  names  he  bears. 
He  was  a  typical  Fleming,  and  at  the  time  when  he 
lived  the  citizens  of  Antwerp  were,  in  their  wealth 
and  pride,  not  unlike  the  Venetians,  among  whom 
Veronese  lived  and  painted.  Indeed,  in  the  power 
and  splendour  of  his  work  Rubens  has  been  com- 
pared to  Veronese,  although  the  Northern  Master 
is  incomparably  the  greater.  Like  Veronese,  Rubens 
produces  almost  magical  effe6ts  of  colour,  and  the 
far,  misty  distances  of  his  low-lying  native  country 
may  be  compared  with  the  soft  skies  of  water- 
surrounded  Venice.  Rubens,  too,  was  full  of  the 
pride  of  life :  he  saw  the  world  as  a  gorgeous 
pageant,  in  which,  as  the  poet-artist  Blake  said  : 
'*  Exuberance  is  Beauty."  To  the  eyes  of  his 
imagination  the  heavens  stood  open,  but  it  was  a 
great,  wide,  earthly  Paradise,  full  of  life  and  colour, 
and  warm,  human  charm  ;  and,  whether  he  painted 
saints   or  goddesses,  martyrs  or  Roman  matrons,  it 

116 


RUBENS 

is  as  large,  beautiful  men  and  women  that  they  live 
for  us  on  his  crowded  canvases. 

Rubens'  father  was  a  Calvinist,  and  as  a  member 
of  the  Reformed  faith,  he  had  to  leave  his  native 
town.  Catholic  Antwerp,  where  he  had  been  a  noted 
lawyer.  He  travelled  with  his  flunily  to  Germany, 
and  his  fourth  son,  the  painter,  was  born  in  a  little 
village  in  Westphalia.  After  the  father's  death  the 
mother  returned  with  her  children  to  Antwerp, 
which  was  still  under  the  stri6fly  Catholic  rule  of 
the  Spaniards.  The  boys  were  in  consequence 
brought  up  as  Catholics,  and  were  educated  at  the 
Jesuit  College  there;  nor  did  Peter  Paul  ever  return 
to  the  faith  for  which  his  father  had  sacrificed  so 
much.  He  was  sent,  while  still  a  boy,  to  Brussels, 
as  page  in  a  noble  flimily,  and,  though  the  life  was 
distasteful  to  him,  it  gave  him  an  early  acquaintance 
with  the  world  and  its  customs,  which  was  of  great 
use  to  him  in  his  later  life.  He  was  next  appren- 
ticed in  a  painter's  studio,  and  worked  so  well  that, 
soon  after  the  age  of  twenty,  he  was  admitted  to 
the  Guild  of  Painters  at  Antwerp. 

Then  came  his  years  of  wandering,  and  he 
travelled  in  Italy  till  the  work  of  the  great  masters 
he  studied  there  became  part  of  his  very  life.  In 
Venice  he  came  under  the  spell  of  Titian  and 
Veronese ;  in  Florence  he  admired  the  immortal 
Michelangelo;  everywhere  he  was  well  received, 
for   he   was  a  man   of  handsome,  stately  presence, 

•117 


LATER   FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

with  courtly  manners,  intelligent  and  well  educated, 
a  good  Latin  scholar,  thanks  to  the  Jesuit  fathers, 
and  speaking  with  equal  fluency  Italian,  English, 
German,  and  Dutch.  During  these  seven  years 
Rubens  was  appointed  Court  painter  to  the  Duke 
of  Mantua,  and,  like  Titian  before  him,  was  sent  on 
diplomatic  journeys  by  his  master.  He  once  went 
to  Spain,  bearing  presents  to  King  Philip  III.  of 
copies  of  famous  Italian  pictures;  horses,  too,  were 
in  his  train,  gifts  from  the  Duke's  own  stables. 
Rubens  loved  to  paint  horses,  and  you  will  see  later 
how  much  he  had  studied  them,  and  how  magnifi- 
cently he  could  paint  them. 

Rubens  was  recalled  to  Antwerp  by  the  news  or 

his  mother's  illness,  and,  to  his  great  grief,  arrived 

home  a  week  after  her  death.   He  would  have  liked 

to  have  gone  back  to  Italy,  but  his  own  Archduke, 

Albert,   Governor  of  the  Netherlands,  claimed  his 

services,  and  he  became  Court  painter  with  a  fine 

salary.  This  determined  him  to  settle  in  Antwerp, 

where  he  built  a  princely  house  in  the  Italian  style, 

surrounded  by  stately  gardens.    There  is  a  picture 

by  him  which  may  well  be  of  this  very  house.   He 

has  painted  it  in  the  summer-time,  standing  fair  and 

dignified  to  the  left  of  the  pid:ure;   on  the  right  is 

the  garden  with  its  trees,  and  he  is  leading  his  wife 

in  knightly  fashion  by  the  hand  across  the  court  that 

lies    between.     In    clearing    the    ground    for    the 

foundations  of  his  house  he  trespassed  upon   land 

ii8 


I  UK  cnAi'KAi 

\.  titer  flf  f>ainliHg  hy  P.  P.  Riibriis.  n<KV  in  the  .Xiilio'iat  Oaltery.  Lontion.') 


^ 


?9^^y 


RUBENS 

belonging  to  the  Company  of  the  Arquehusiers, 
who  threatened  him  with  a  law-suit.  This  was 
averted  by  Rubens,  who  cleverly  suggested  that  he 
should  paint  the  offended  citizens  a  pidlure  for  the 
Chapel  of  their  Guild,  as  compensation.  This  was 
accepted,  and  the  famous  "Descent  from  the  Cross," 
still  the  glory  of  Antwerp,  is  the  result. 

Rubens  married  twice,  and  he  painted  both  wives 
so  often,  we  seem  to  know  them  well.  His  first  wife 
w^as  Isabella  Brant,  a  handsome  woman,  whom  we 
see  in  one  of  his  pid:ures  sitting  by  him  in  a  stiff 
ruff  and  a  tall,  steeple-crowned  hat,  a  sweet,  sensible 
expression  on  her  quiet  face.  Much  later,  when  he 
was  nearly  fifty-three,  he  married  a  young  girl, 
Helena  Fourment,  a  lovely  young  woman,  of  what 
we  now  call  "the  real  Rubens'  type";  wonderfully 
fair,  with  wide  blue  eyes,  soft,  round,  and  long- 
limbed  in  person.  We  see  her  charmingly  painted 
in  the  gallery  at  Munich,  her  little  boy  on  her  knee, 
a  delicious,  naked  baby-boy,  wearing  nothing  but  a 
gallant  plumed  hat  on  his  fiiir  little  head. 

Besides  his  town-house  Rubens  had  a  country- 
house,  the  Chateau  de  Steen,  near  Mechlin.  You 
see  this  chateau  and  the  surrounding  stretch  of 
country  in  a  picture,  one  of  a  series  illustrating  the 
four  seasons,  which  Rubens  painted.  It  is  in  the 
National  Gallery,  and  represents  Autumn,  as  you 
may  recognize  from  the  sportsman  in  the  tore- 
ground,  lurking  with   his  flint-lock,  about  to  shoot 

119 


LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

the  sitting  partridge.  Wordsworth  knew  this  picture 
well ;  in  his  day  it  belonged  to  his  friend,  Sir  George 
Beaumont.  The  poet  writes  one  day,  praising  the 
art  with  which  Rubens  '*  has  brought,  as  it  were,  a 
whole  country  into  one  landscape,  and  made  the 
most  formal  partitions  of  cultivation,  hedgerows  of 
pollard  willows,  condud:  the  eye  into  the  depths  of 
his  pi(fture,  and  thus  has  given  it  that  appearance 
of  immensity  which  is  so  striking."  Sir  George  left 
his  picfture  to  the  National  Gallery,  where  you  may 
still  see  it.  **  Spring  "  is  in  the  Wallace  colled:ion 
at  Hertford  House,  with  the  rainbow  which  gives  it 
its  name.  *'  Summer  "  and  "  Winter  "  belong  to  the 
King,  and  are  at  Windsor. 

Rubens  was  not  idle  in  his  country-house  ;  he 
studied  the  lovely  effe(^ts  of  nature  around  him  for 
future  works,  and  even  found  time  to  paint  at  least 
two  large  canvases.  We  know,  for  example,  that  it 
was  there  that  he  painted  the  great  altar-piece, 
"  The  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes,"  for  the 
Guild  of  Fishmongers  at  Mechlin  near  by,  where 
it  hangs  in  the  Church  of  Notre-Dame  to  this  day. 

In  the  country  he  lived  very  simply;  rising 
early,  he  first  heard  Mass,  and  then  painted,  while 
someone  read  aloud  to  him  from  one  of  his  favourite 
books,  Livy,  Plutarch,  Cicero,  or  Seneca.  He 
stoj-jped  work  at  eleven  and  looked  at  his  art- 
treasures  till  twelve,  when  he  dined.  Then  he 
worked   again    till   between   five  and   six,   when   he 

I20 


RUBENS 

rode  out  on  one  of  his  fine  Spanish  horses,  returning 
home  in  time  for  supper. 

Rubens  was  not,  however,  allowed  to  lead  this 
quiet,  regular  life  without  interruption  ;  sometimes 
he  left  home  for  long  periods:  once,  for  example,  he 
was  sent  for  by  Marie  de  Medicis,  the  widowed 
Queen  of  Henri  IV.  of  France,  to  paint  a  series  of 
pictures,  twenty-one  in  number,  commemorating 
the  principal  events  in  her  life,  beginning  from  her 
birth.  These  decorative  works  are  now  hung  in  one 
long  gallery  at  the  Louvre,  and  can  there  be 
enjoyed  as  they  were  intended  to  be  ;  for  they  are 
not  isolated  pid:ures,  but  a  set  of  splendid  designs, 
meant  to  cover  large  wall-spaces,  in  the  manner  of 
tapestries. 

While  he  was  in  Paris,  Rubens  became  acquainted 
with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  a  great  lover  of  art, 
and  the  wealthiest  nobleman  in  England.  After 
Rubens'  return  to  Antwerp,  Buckingham  visited 
him  and  so  much  admired  the  artist's  great  colle(5tion 
of  paintings  and  sculpture,  that  Rubens  consented, 
rather  unwillingly,  to  sell  them  for  a  very  great  sum. 
In  1630  the  painter  went  himself  to  England, 
charged  as  Ambassador  with  negotiations  for  a  peace 
with  Spain.  He  gave  the  King,  Charles  I.,  a  pi(5ture 
by  his  own  hand,  appropriately  called,  "The  Bless- 
ings of  Peace,"  which  is  now  in  the  National  Gallery. 
In  the  middle,  "  Sweet  Peace  sits  crowned  with 
smiles,"  while  at  her  feet,  the  great  god   Pan  offers 

121 


LATER  FLEMISH  PALVTERS 

her  *'  the  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth,"  and  a  big 
harmless  leopard,  his  claws  playfully  unsheathed, 
rolls  his  furry  length.  Two  nymphs  attend  great 
Pan :  Wealth,  her  loyely  back  to  us,  is  about  to 
scatter  jewels  from  a  deep  bowl,  Joy  sounds  the 
timbrel.  Opposite  this  group  a  sweet-faced  girl 
kneels  with  two  younger  children.  This  little 
group,  so  tenderly  painted,  was,  perhaps,  from 
Rubens'  own  family  ;  a  delightful  winged  Cupid 
pulls  grapes  for  them  from  Pan's  store.  In  the 
distance  Famine  and  Pestilence  are  seen  with- 
drawing, and  Minerya  herself  gently  expels  War,  a 
fierce  figure  in  armour  of  shining  mail.  In  Cromwell's 
time  this  picflure  was  sold  for  a  hundred  pounds,  and 
was  taken  to  Genoa,  to  the  Palace  of  the  Dorias. 
Luckily  for  us,  the  Marquis  of  Stafford  bought  it 
back  for  three  thousand  pounds,  and  gave  it  to  the 
nation  in  1825. 

It  was  during  this  visit  to  England  that  Rubens 
designed,  and  partly  carried  out,  the  ceiling  ot  the 
banqueting-hall  in  the  Palace  of  Whitehall,  repre- 
senting the  apotheosis  of  James  I.  The  ceiling, 
though  it  has  been  largely  restored,  still  exists,  and 
you  may  see  it  in  its  original  position  in  what  is  now 
the  United  Service  Museum. 

Our  illustration  is  Rubens'  famous  **  Chapeau  de 
Paille,"  now  called  the  "  Chapeau  de  Poil."  It  is 
the  picture  of  Rubens'  sister-in-law,  Susannah 
Lunden,    painted    while    she    was    still     Susannah 

122 


RUBENS 

Fourment.  The  story  goes  that  when  she  was  a 
girl  of  twenty  she  refused  to  sit  to  Rubens,  but  was 
one  day  caught  by  him  unawares  and  painted  in  her 
garden,  wearing  a  "  straw  hat."  She  forgave  the 
painter  his  indiscretion,  and  accepted  the  picture. 
After  her  death  Rubens  begged  it  back  from  the 
family,  and  gave  them  instead  the  replica  we  now 
have,  in  which  she  wears  a  "  beaver  hat."  The 
family  kept  the  picture  until  1822,  when  it  was 
bought  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  ;  fifty  years  later  it 
became  the  property  of  the  nation,  and  one  of  the 
gems  of  its  gallery. 

The  National  Gallery  is  rich  in  pi(!T:ures  by 
Rubens;  especially  fine  is  **  The  Judgment  of  Paris," 
where  the  Trojan  shepherd  sits,  apple  in  hand,  on 
the  point  of  declaring  Venus  to  be  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  the  three  goddesses.  Juno  has  been  rejected, 
her  proud  peacock  at  her  feet ;  Minerva,  too,  whose 
owl  looks  out  sleepily  from  the  bushes  beyond. 
The  whole  scene  is  full  of  rustic  grace,  the  rough- 
haired  sheep-dog,  lying  watchfully  near  his  master, 
eyes  distrustingly  the  peacock  who  stretches  out  his 
slender  neck  ;  the  sheep  graze  quietly  close  by,  and 
the  distant  landscape  lies  bathed  in  summer  sun- 
shine. Another  pidture  in  the  same  gallery  is  inter- 
esting, because  it  belonged  to  Rubens  up  to  the  time 
of  his  death,  and  stands  in  the  inventory  of  his  pos- 
sessions as  "Three  cloathes  pasted  upon  board,  being 
the   Triumph    of  Julius   Cssar,   after   Mantegna." 

123 


LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

You  will  remember  that  Mantegna  painted  his 
**  Triumph  "  for  the  Duke  of  xMantua,  and  that  it 
now  hangs  at  Hampton  Court.  If  you  can  compare 
these  two  pidlures,  you  will  see  how  widely  the  two 
painters  differ  in  their  conception  of  ancient  Rome. 
Mantegna  insists  on  its  strength,  as  Shakespeare 
does  in  "  Coriolanus  ";  Rubens  thinks  of  its  glory, 
and  adds  flaming  candelabra,  dishevelled  maidens 
sounding  cymbals,  and  elephants  twisting  their  long 
trunks,  trumpeting  to  the  skies.  His  is  a  Rome  of 
the  Renaissance,  filled  with  all  that,  pidorially, 
Rubens  loved  best  in  life. 

Animals  of  all  kinds  he  introduced  gladly  into 
his  pi6lures ;  horses,  as  I  have  said,  and  dogs; 
stags,  wild  boars,  and  foxes ;  lions,  too,  and  leopards, 
panthers  and  wolves.  Children,  "  those  innocent 
little  animals  of  our  daily  life,"  he  painted  incom- 
parably. In  Munich  there  is  a  pid:ure  of  seven 
small  naked  cherubs,  staggering  sturdily  under  the 
weight  of  a  great  festoon  of  fruit.  We  are  told  that 
he  studied  their  baby  graces  from  his  own  little 
boys,  and  just  so  round  and  fair  and  dimpled  they 
may  well  have  been. 

Rubens  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-two,  and  was 
buried  with  immense  pomp  in  his  own  parish 
church  in  Antwerp.  There  you  may  see  the  great 
altar-piece  in  honour  of  S.  George,  painted  by  him 
for  a  side-chapel  ;  he  has  introduced  into  it  his  own 
portrait  in  the  guise  of  the  glittering  soldier-saint, 

124 


I 
I 


RUBENS 

together  with  the  portraits  of  all  those  he  loved,  his 
two  wives,  his  children,  and  his  sister-in-law,  Susan- 
nah ;  it  is  a  wonderful  masterpiece,  inspiring  those 
who  look  at  it  not  perhaps  with  lofty  aims  or  high 
resolves,  but  with  a  great  desire  for  the  grace  of 
peaceful  virtues  and  the  happiness  of  calm,  every- 
day affedtion,  and  goodwill. 


125 


CHAPTER    II 

Van   Dyck   (1599-1641). 

Anton  Van  Dyck  was  the  best  known  of  all 
Rubens'  pupils.  He  was  born  in  Antwerp,  and 
very  early  entered  the  master's  studio.  He,  like 
Holbein,  was  recognized  chiefly  as  a  portrait-painter, 
and  although  a  Fleming,  it  was  in  England  that  he 
worked  the  longest  and  painted  some  of  his  finest 
pictures.  When  we  talk  of  the  Cavalier  gentlemen 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  we  think  of  Van  Dyck's 
portraits  and  their  melancholy,  refined  faces,  and 
eyes  that  seem  to  foresee  approaching  disaster. 

When  Van  Dyck  was  only  nineteen,  he  was 
admitted  into  the  Guild  of  Painters  in  Antwerp, 
and  then  he  travelled,  as  his  master  had  done  before 
him,  to  Italy,  where,  thanks  to  Rubens'  introdudlions, 
all  doors  were  open  to  him.  Everywhere  he  painted, 
copying  Titian's  pictures  in  Venice,  and  obtaining 
commissions  for  portraits  there,  in  Rome,  and  in 
Genoa.  In  Genoa  he  stayed  the  longest,  for  his 
work  was  much  sought  after  by  the  wealthy 
merchant-princes  of  that  city,  and  when  you  go  to 
Genoa,  you  will  find  many  of  the  portraits  still 
hanging  on  the  palace  walls  for  which  they  were 

126 


VAN  DYCK 

painted.  One  of  them,  the  pidlure  of  the  "  Marchesa 
Balbi,"  hangs  now  over  one  of  the  mantelpieces  of 
Dorchester  House  in  London;  it  is  the  beautiful  por- 
trait of  a  stately  young  woman  with  soft,  kind,  dark 
eyes.  People  say  the  charming  young  Flemish 
painter  knew  so  well  how  to  talk  to  his  sitters,  that 
even  the  shyest  lost  self-consciousness,  and  looked 
their  best  and  comeliest  in  his  presence. 

Van  Dyck  was  twice  in  England,  before  he  settled 
there  as  Court  painter  to  Charles  I.  in  1632.  The 
King  gave  him  two  houses — a  town-house  in  Black- 
friars,  and  a  country  one  at  Eltham.  There  is  a 
note  found  among  the  State  papers  of  the  period, 
headed,  "  Things  to  be  done.  ,  .  .  To  speak  with 
Inigo  Jones  concerning  a  house  for  Van  Dike." 
Inigo  Jones  was,  you  remember,  Court  Archited: 
to  Charles  I. 

Van  Dyck  was  now  in  a  position  to  realize  his 
dream  of  living  sumptuously,  and  surrounding  him- 
self with  fine  friends  and  treasures  of  art,  as  he  had 
seen  Rubens  do.  We  are  told  that  he  "always  went 
magnificently  dressed,  kept  a  numerous  and  gallant 
equipage,  and  so  good  a  table  that  few  princes  were 
more  visited  or  better  served."  He  worked  hard, 
too,  painting  portraits  for  noble  fiimilies  all  over 
England  ;  but  he  lacked  Rubens'  sober  good  sense 
and  underlying  frugality;  he  often  found  himself  in 
money  difHculties  and  distressed  his  royal  master  by 
his    dissipations.    Charles    wished    him    to    marry, 

127 


LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

thinking  that  a  wife  would  help  him  to  live  seriously, 
and  through  the  King's  influence,  he  married  Mary 
Ruthven,  Governess  to  the  young  Prince  of  Wales, 
the  daughter  of  a  noble  Scotch  family.  But  his 
habits  of  extravagance  had  a  bad  effed:  on  Van 
Dyck's  work ;  he  grew  careless,  undertook  for  the 
sake  of  gain  more  pictures  than  he  could  paint  well, 
and  left  a  great  deal  to  his  pupils. 

After  his  marriage  he  travelled  with  his  young 
wife  for  two  years,  and  when  he  returned  to  England, 
he  found  what  great  misfortunes  had  overtaken  the 
royal  family  of  the  Stuarts.  Charles  I.  had  fled  to 
York,  his  wife  was  universally  detested,  trouble  and 
confusion  reigned.  It  was  Van  Dyck's  death-blow; 
he  was  only  forty-two,  but  his  health  was  weakened 
by  overwork  and  wild  living.  He  died  in  his  wife's 
arms  in  his  house  at  Blackfriars,  and  was  buried  in 
old  S.  Paul's,  the  church  which  a  few  years  later 
perished  in  the  Great  Fire  of  London. 

Our  illustration  is  from  one  of  Van  Dyck's  royal 
groups  that  still  belongs  to  Charles  II. 's  descendant, 
the  Duke  of  Richmond.  Charles  I.  sits  with  all  the 
royal  grace  the  artist  has  taught  us  to  love  in  him. 
Beside  him  is  his  Queen,  Henrietta  Maria,  her 
small  French  face  with  its  little,  obstinate  mouth, 
and  her  satin  dress  of  the  soft  yellow  colour  that 
Van  Dyck  loved.  Completing  the  group  are  the 
two  royal  children  in  the  tight  baby-caps  of 
Stuart    times,    the    pretty    spaniel,    of    the    King's 

128 


VAN  DYCK 

favourite  breed,  at  their  feet.  Behind,  the  proud 
pile  of  Windsor  lies  under  threatening  storm-clouds, 
which  seem  to  us  to  symbolize  an  end  that  Van 
Dyck  must  have  been  far  from  anticipating.  One 
of  his  most  beautiful  portraits  of  Charles  is  in  the 
Louvre.  The  King  is  hunting,  and  has  just  dismounted 
from  his  horse,  which  is  held  by  the  Marquis  of 
Hamilton,  Master  of  the  Horse.  Some  think  the 
painting  of  this  fine  picture  was  influenced  by 
Velasquez,  the  Spanish  master,  of  whom  you  will 
hear  later.  Van  Dyck  had  certainly  seen  his  work. 
There  is  also  an  imposing  picture  of  Charles  in  full 
armour  on  horseback  at  Windsor;  and  in  the 
National  Gallery  is  another,  a  stately  picture,  *'  by 
a  Cavalier  of  a  Cavalier."  The  King  is  sitting  on 
his  great  charger,  a  sturdy  beast,  which  has  the 
look  of  a  fine  modern  dray-horse.  His  equerry,  Sir 
Thomas  Morton,  is  on  foot,  carrying  the  King's 
helmet.  The  light  falls  on  the  royal  armour  of 
polished  steel  and  on  the  King's  sad,  romantic  face; 
he  sits  bare-headed,  his  hair  long,  just  lifted  by  the 
breeze.  The  lovely  landscape  might  have  been 
painted  by  Titian.  This  pi(fture  belonged  to  Charles 
himself,  and  passed,  after  his  execution,  to  Munich, 
where  it  was  bought  by  the  Great  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough. Fortunately,  the  nation  has  been  able  to 
buy  it  back. 

One    of  Van    Dyck's    best    portraits    is    in    the 
National  Gallery  ;   it  is  said  to  be  the  pifture  that 

129  K 


LATER  FLEMISH  PAINTERS 

he  always  carried  about  with  him  in  his  early  days 
as  the  proof  of  his  capabilities.  It  represents  a 
Flemish  gentleman,  Cornelius  van  der  Geest,  a 
lover  of  art  and  a  good  friend  both  to  Rubens  and 
to  Van  Dyck.  The  portrait  gives  an  ideal  head  of  a 
refined,  elderly  man  of  the  world,  whose  eyes,  in 
spite  of  their  shrewd,  kindly  glance,  seem  to  have 
known  sorrow. 

Venitia,  the  adventure-loving  wife  of  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby,  Van  Dyck  knew  well,  and  he  painted  her 
several  times,  for  she  was  a  lady  of  rare  beauty.  She 
died  young  and  very  suddenly,  poisoned,  some  say, 
by  her  husband,  who  was  fond  of  experimenting 
with  drugs  on  the  human  body.  Van  Dyck  has 
painted  her  on  her  death-bed :  a  faded  rose  lies 
beside  her  ;  on  her  lips  is  a  tranquil  smile. 

Van  Dyck  is  essentially  the  painter  of  Princes, 
and  of  Princes  on  the  brink  of  ruin.  Many  of  the 
beautiful  youths  and  courtly  gentlemen  whom  he 
painted  perished  in  the  Civil  Wars,  or  lived  on  for 
long,  miserable  years  in  exile.  You  will  be  con- 
scious of  the  same  tragic  charm  when  we  consider 
the  French  pictures  painted  on  the  Eve  of  the 
Revolution  :  these  people  lived  in  halcyon  days,  and 
the  storm  was  near  at  hand.  Just  such  a  gentleman 
of  the  period  hangs  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
in  New  York.  He  is  James  Stuart,  Duke  of  Len- 
nox, created  Duke  of  Richmond  by  his  cousin, 
King  Charles,  in  the  year  of  Van  Dyck's  death.  He 

130 


VAN  DYCK 

stands  regally,  one  hand  on  his  hip,  the  other, 
gloved,  caresses  the  head  of  his  great  hound.  He 
wears  the  Order  of  S.  George  on  a  blue  ribbon  and 
the  brilliant  star  of  the  Saint  Esprit  adorns  his  short 
cloak.  Fair  hair  curls  round  his  pale,  boyish  face, 
but  his  steady  glance  shows  his  well-balanced  mind. 
He  impoverished  himself  for  his  royal  master  during 
the  Civil  War,  and,  after  the  execution  of  Charles, 
stood  one  of  the  few  mourners  who  took  part  in  the 
hurried  funeral  ceremony  at  Windsor.  The  Duke 
died  before  the  brightening  days  of  the  Restora- 
tion. 

Portrait-painting  owes  an  immense  debt  to  Van 
Dyck's  genius,  and  his  influence  may  be  traced  on 
all  those  who  followed  him.  Before  him  come  many 
good  portrait-painters,  it  is  true,  and  Van  Dyck  was 
always  rather  overshadowed  by  the  towering  figure 
of  Rubens  :  his  portraits  have  not  the  certainty  of 
Holbein's,  nor  is  he  such  a  supreme  master  of  his 
craft  as  Velasquez  and  Frans  Hals  :  he  cannot  move 
us  like  Rembrandt  by  his  mystery  and  depth,  but 
he  has  a  charm  which  he  alone  wields,  and  for 
which  England  must  be  for  ever  grateful. 


•31 


PART  V 
DUTCH   PAINTERS 

About  the  same  time  that  the  Flemish  Nether- 
lands emancipated  themselves  from  Spain,  the  Dutch 
United  Provinces  began  their  separate  existence, 
and  thus  there  opened  out  for  the  Dutch  painters  a 
new  era.  The  United  Provinces  were  a  Republic, 
and  no  Court  painters  were  needed  to  decorate  their 
palaces  with  stories  from  the  mythology,  or  paint 
members  of  the  reigning  family  for  presents  to 
neighbouring  Princes.  This  threw  the  painters  back 
upon  other  subjects  for  their  art.  To  adorn  their 
own  handsome  rooms,  the  rich  burghers  preferred 
to  buy  pictures  illustrating  scenes  from  the  life 
familiar  to  them,  or  landscapes  of  the  bright  out- 
side world  they  loved.  The  Dutch  charadter  was 
home-keeping  and  self-contained:  they  knew 
nothing  of  the  snowy  Alpine  peaks  ;  they  wanted 
their  own  frozen  canals  and  rivers,  lit  up  by  their 
own  red,  winter  sunshine.  They  had  no  taste  for 
heathen  gods  and  goddesses  and  stories  of  poetry 
and   romance.   They    liked    pi(5tures  of   their    own 

^33 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

mild-eyed  ladies  clad  in  velvet  and  satin,  playing 
at  the  harpsichord  or  singing  to  the  lute  ;  or,  for 
gaiety  and  amusement,  they  liked  scenes  in  village 
taverns,  with  drinking  peasants  or  jolly  wedding- 
feasts.  All  these  things  the  Dutch  artists  learned 
to  paint  supremely  well  in  those  early,  peaceful 
days  of  the  new  Republic. 

This  concentration  on  the  fa6ls  of  their  own 
lives  was  due  also,  in  part,  to  the  new  religion.  As 
you  have  seen  in  Italy  and  in  Germany  in  the  pre- 
Reformation  days,  many  painters  worked  almost 
exclusively  for  the  churches,  and  there  was  an  un- 
failing demand  for  altar-pieces,  or  sacred  pid:ures 
for  private  oratories.  The  Reformed  Church  dis- 
couraged all  such  art,  and  the  painters  lavished 
their  skill  on  small,  everyday  incidents,  as  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  very  aptly  puts  it :  "  With  the 
Dutch,  a  history-piece  is  properly  a  portrait  of 
themselves;  whether  they  describe  the  inside  or 
outside  of  their  houses,  we  have  their  own  people 
engaged  in  their  own  peculiar  occupations,  working 
or  drinking,  playing  or  lighting." 

The  first  Dutch  painter  whom  we  are  to  consider 
is  Frans  Hals,  not  a  painter  of  such  "  Conversa- 
tion" pi(5lures  as  I  have  just  spoken  of,  but  a  great 
portrait-painter,  the  greatest  Holland  has  ever  pro- 
duced. 


134 


I 


CHAPTER  I 

Frans  Hals   (1580- 1666). 

Frans  Hals  belonged  to  a  family  associated  for 
more  than  two  centuries  with  the  town  of  Haarlem 
in  Holland.  He  was,  however,  born  in  Antwerp, 
where  his  father  had  migrated,  perhaps  because  he 
had  adhered  to  the  unpopular  Spanish  party  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolt  of  the  United  Provinces.  Of 
his  early  life  nothing  has  come  down  to  us,  and,  as 
far  as  we  know,  we  have  no  picture  painted  by  him 
before  the  year  161 6,  the  date  of  his  "  Banquet  of 
the  S.  Joris  Shooting  Company."  In  all  probability, 
he  learned  his  art  first  in  the  studio  of  some  Flemish 
master  in  Antwerp,  returned  to  his  ancestral  town 
of  Haarlem,  and  there  worked  in  the  studio  of  some 
Dutch  master.  However  that  may  be,  the  silence 
that  covers  the  first  thirty-six  years  of  the  master's 
life  is  unbroken.  Then  suddenly  Hals  bursts  upon 
us  with  this  finished  picture  of  one  of  the  Volunteer 
companies,  who,  during  the  forty  years'  struggle  of 
Holland  against  Spain,  had  proved  their  value  as  a 
means  of  national  defence.  Such  guild  pidures  can- 
not have  been  easy  to  paint;  just  a  group  of  solidly 
built,  rather  swaggering  burghers,  all  dressed  in  the 

135^ 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

same  bravery  of  ruffs  and  broad  sashes,  bearing  the 
same  tall  pikes  and  heavy  flags,  all  eating,  it  appears, 
the  same  food.  Hals  has  painted  five  such  pid:ures, 
and  three  smaller  groups  of  hospital  committee- 
members  ;  one  of  these  latter,  composed  of  women 
only,  their  pale,  keen  faces  and  severe  black  dresses 
wonderfully  arranged  to  give  the  impression  of 
competent  authority.  All  these  picflures  were  appar- 
ently paid  for  by  private  subscription  of  the 
members,  and  thus  everybody  may  well  have  had 
his  personal  opinion  about  the  arrangement  of  the 
group.  When  all  these  difficulties  are  taken  into 
consideration,  you  will  better  appreciate  the  astonish- 
ing success  of  the  painter  in  his  treatment  of  such 
material. 

Hals  painted  another  class  of  pi<5lure  altogether 
in  his  fine  half-length  portraits  of  men.  We  know 
of  several  such  canvases,  among  them  "  The  Laugh- 
ing Cavalier,"  the  jovial  gentleman,  long-haired  and 
beruffed,  in  the  Hertford  House  collection.  Another 
is  in  the  National  Gallery,  painted  by  Hals  when 
he  was  over  fifty.  It  may  be  the  portrait  of  the 
painter  himself,  for  it  shows  us  a  cheerful,  rollick- 
ing fellow,  full  of  dash  and  devilry.  The  same 
gallery  has  lately  bought  a  new  picture  by  him, 
one  of  those  large  family  portraits  the  Dutch  loved 
to  possess.  In  it  Hals  has  painted  the  father  and 
mother,  sons  and  daughters,  some  almost  grown  up, 
some  still  little  children.   It  is  a  stiff  group,  all  black 

136 


FRANS  HALS 

and  white — black,  for  they  all  wear  dresses  of  some 
sombre  hue;  white  with  the  whiteness  of  their 
starched  ruffs;  but  it  is  valuable  as  showing  the 
burgher  taste  of  the  time,  and  as  giving  that  sense 
of  absolute  likeness  and  reality  of  which  Hals  had 
in  so  high  a  measure  the  secret. 

America  possesses  five  pi(flures  by  him — two  in 
Boston,  and  three  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
New  York.  They  are  all  portraits,  except  one  of 
the  New  York  set,  "  The  Smoker,"  a  group  of 
peasant  women  laughing  round  a  man  who  smokes 
a  long  clay  pipe.  In  the  same  collecftion  is  the 
portrait  of  a  woman,  which  was  formerly  supposed 
to  represent  the  painter's  wife.  *'  The  Smoker " 
is  probably  an  early  work  of  the  master,  as  it  is 
painted  on  an  oak  panel ;  later  he  always  used 
canvas. 

Wc  are  told  many  stories  about  Hals,  not  much 
to  his  credit.  He  was  undoubtedly  a  rough  fellow, 
fond  of  drink  and  low  company.  Once  when  Van 
Dyck  was  on  his  way  to  England,  he  stopped  at 
Haarlem  on  purpose  to  see  Hals,  whose  work  was 
known  to  him.  He  did  not  find  him  in  his  studio, 
and  even  when  the  painter's  servant  had  been  sent 
to  the  inn  to  fetch  his  master,  Van  Dyck  had  to 
wait  a  long  while  before  Hals  came  unwillingly 
home.  The  visitor  pretended  he  had  come  to  have 
his  portrait  painted,  but,  having  only  a  couple  of 
hours  to  wait,  he  begged  Hals  to  be  speedy.    At 

137 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

this,  we  are  told,  **  he  got  to  work  like  a  soldier 
assaulting  a  fortress ;  he  showered  blows  on  the 
canvas,  and  the  features  began  to  take  shape  as 
though  by  magic."  Van  Dyck  then  suggested  that 
he  should  make  a  portrait  of  Hals ;  but  he  set 
about  his  work  in  such  a  masterly  fashion  that 
Hals  became  suspicious,  and,  calling  out  that  he 
must  be  Van  Dyck  himself,  caught  him  in  his  arms 
and  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks.  Van  Dyck  always 
spoke  of  Hals  as  one  of  the  finest  portrait-painters 
of  the  day,  adding  that  no  one  was  so  masterly  in 
the  use  of  his  brush  as  he. 

Hals  never  became  prosperous  ;  he  painted  his 
masterpieces,  but  at  the  same  time  we  hear  of  him 
being  had  up  before  the  magistrates  for  drinking  and 
for  ill-treating  his  wife.  He  lived  to  be  very  old, 
and  in  his  last  years  was  dependent  on  the  charity 
of  the  municipality  of  Haarlem,  who  supplied  him 
with  a  roof  to  cover  him  and  firing  to  warm  him. 

To  know  Hals  properly,  it  is  necessary  to  go  to 
Haarlem,  and  there  you  will  find  how  zealously  the 
town  that  supported  him  in  his  old  age  has  done 
him  honour.  There,  in  the  quiet  old  Dutch  town 
is  a  sunny,  sleepy  little  gallery,  where  as  many  as 
possible  of  his  works  have  been  collected,  and 
where,  undisturbed  by  other  sightseers,  you  may 
study  the  real  greatness  of  the  master. 

There,  too,  you  may  see  the  two  methods  that 
distinguish  his  early  from  his  later  work  ;    at  first 

138 


T 

I 


FRANS   HALS 

the  painting  is  closer,  tighter,  smoother  ;  later  he 
painted  more  loosely,  with  grand,  almost  careless, 
sweeps  of  his  brush,  which  yet  result  in  the  present- 
ment of  living,  powerful  portraits,  characteristic  of 
the  sitter,  even  down  to  the  gloved  hand,  or  the 
empty  glove  held  in  the  hand,  for  no  artist  ever 
born,  except  indeed  Velasquez,  painted  these  things 
like  Hals. 


139 


CHAPTER  II 

Rembrandt  (i 606-1 669). 

When  we  come  to  the  work  of  Rembrandt,  we  find 
ourselves  in  the  presence  of  a  man  of  the  highest 
originahty,  whose  aim  was  entirely  different  from 
that  of  any  of  his  predecessors  in  art.  They  had 
tried  to  paint  all  objed:s  in  colour,  as  they  saw 
them.  Rembrandt  tried  to  represent  those  objed:s 
by  the  contrasts  of  light  and  shade  which  they 
afforded.  So  successful  was  he  in  this  endeavour, 
that,  true  son  of  the  Dutch  people  though  he  was, 
he  has  lifted  himself  far  above  the  narrow  circle 
of  merely  national  appreciation,  and  has  become 
of  world-wide  importance. 

He  was  the  son  of  a  well-to-do  miller,  born  on 
the  banks  of  the  Lower  Rhine,  hence  called  "  Rem- 
brandt of  the  Rhine,"  and  some  people  think  that  his 
father's  mill  was  his  first  school  of  painting  ;  the  one 
ray  of  light,  falling,  when  the  sun  shone,  from  the 
small  high  window  into  his  room  in  the  mill,  must 
have  been  like  the  strong,  single  light  penetrating 
the  otherwise  unbroken  darkness,  which  you  see  in 
so  many  of  his  wonderful  pictures.  His  father's  mill 
was  near  Ley  den,  the  oldest  of  the  Dutch  Universities, 

140 


REMBRANDT 

and  it  was  at  first  hoped  that  the  boy  would  go  there 
and  become  a  scholar.  But  that  was  not  to  be.  Rem- 
brandt cared  only  for  drawing,  and  was  sent  to  the 
studios  of  several  native  artists,  arriving  finally  in 
Amsterdam,  the  representative  of  no  one  school, 
but  the  founder,  by  his  genius,  of  a  school  of  his 
own,  the  glory  of  which  is  imperishable.  He  seems 
to  have  begun  by  painting  his  own  family  ;  his  father, 
who  died  in  1630,  he  painted  several  times,  as  a 
rather  haggard-looking  man,  with  a  broad  forehead 
and  keen,  intelligent  eyes  ;  his  mother  he  painted 
still  more  often,  a  clever,  kind-hearted  old  woman, 
sometimes  with  her  Bible  in  her  hand  :  it  was  from 
her,  they  say,  that  Rembrandt  gained  his  wonderful 
knowledge  of  the  Bible,  which  led  him  so  often  to 
choose  Bible  subjects  for  his  pi(5lures,  and  to  inter- 
pret them  with  such  unwearying  skill. 

The  first  dated  work  of  Rembrandt  is  '*  The 
Money-changer,"  of  1627,  but  he  had  painted 
many  portraits  of  himself  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
which  must  belong  to  about  the  same  period.  Rem- 
brandt had  all  his  life  a  passion  for  painting  his 
own  portrait,  like  Rubens,  whose  own  handsome 
person  is  often  seen  adorning  some  great  group  as 
saint  or  warrior.  But  Rembrandt  painted  his  own 
rugged,  thick-featured  face,  not  because  he  found  it 
in  any  way  beautiful,  but  because  it  gave  him  a 
convenient  model,  and  he  could  try  on  it  the  effe<ft 
of  countless  disguises — beaver  hats,  felt  hats,  turbans, 

141 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

or  helmets — for  he  was  beginning  to  collect  armour 
and  to  paint  it  in  his  pictures  to  enhance  the  interest 
of  the  problem.  He  has  painted  himself  in  one  of 
these  gorgets,  as  we  see  from  his  own  portrait  in 
Hertford  House,  and  he  made  his  father  wear 
armour  in  one  pi(5ture  too,  so  bravely  does  the 
polished  surface  of  the  steel  reflect  the  light,  giving 
him  just  the  interchange  of  brightness  and  shadow 
that  he  needed  for  his  art. 

This  eagerness  to  obtain  "  properties "  for  his 
studio  led  him  to  form  a  friendship  with  an  art- 
dealer,  Hendrick  van  Uylenborch,  and  with  his  help 
Rembrandt  began  to  form  a  collecflion  of  art  trea- 
sures, a  habit  which  was  later  to  become  a  passion 
with  him  and  lead  him  into  many  misfortunes. 

In  1634  he  married  his  friend's  niece,  Saskia  van 
Uylenborch,  and  the  brief  eight  years  of  their 
married  life  were  golden  ones  for  him.  He  painted 
his  wife  many  times,  alone  and  with  himself;  you 
see  the  two  in  all  kinds  of  pictures,  clothed  in  furs 
and  jewels  and  richly  embroidered  raiment:  once, 
during  the  time  of  their  betrothal,  he  painted 
Saskia  in  a  feathered  hat,  carrying  a  little  sprig  of 
rosemary  in  her  hand,  which  in  Holland  is  a  symbol 
of  betrothal.  Everybody  wanted  to  buy  his  work — 
his  sacred  pictures,  his  portraits,  his  etchings.  He 
worked  with  astonishing  care,  often  sketching  a 
face  in  ten  different  positions  before  he  painted  it, 
or  spending  days  arranging  a  turban  or  a  head-dress 

142 


REMBRANDT 

to  his  taste.  He  had  many  pupils  too,  who  came  to 
him  gladly.  And  all  the  time  he  was  buying  anti- 
quities, especially  drawings  and  etchings  :  complete 
sets  from  the  works  of  Mantegna,  we  are  told,  and 
also  of  Albrecht  Diirer  ;  four  volumes  of  engravings 
after  Raphael,  and  a  pi(^fure  believed  to  be  by  Gior- 
gionc. 

The  first  cloud  on  his  prosperity  occurred  in  the 
year  1641,  when  the  Company  of  Arquebusiers  in 
Amsterdam  commissioned  him  to  paint  their  portraits 
in  a  group.  It  was,  of  course,  to  be  the  kind  of 
picture  Hals  painted  so  often  and  so  well.  But 
instead  of  the  expecfled  group,  Rembrandt  gave  the 
world  that  masterpiece  of  light  and  shade,  "  The 
Night  Watch,"  which  now  hangs  by  itself  in  a 
specially  prepared  room  in  the  gallery  at  Amsterdam, 
the  pride  of  the  whole  city.  But  at  the  time  it  was 
far  from  satisfying  the  good  burghers  who  had 
ordered  it.  He  had  chosen  the  moment  when  the 
Company  marches  out  of  the  city  gates,  its  two 
officers  in  front,  and,  to  the  vexation  of  the  other 
members,  these  two  alone  recognizable;  the  greater 
number  of  the  Company  are  in  deep  shadow, 
with  their  guns  and  waving  flags.  Complaints  were 
loud,  but  Rembrandt  left  the  picfture  as  it  was.  He 
had  painted  what  seemed  to  himself  the  truest  and 
best,  and  not  to  satisfy  the  lust  of  other  men's  eyes. 

But  the  tide  of  prosperity  turned,  and  private 
sorrows    came    thickly    upon    him.    Saskia's    three 

143 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

eldest  children  had  all  died  in  babyhood,  and  when 
the  fourth,  Titus,  was  born,  Saskia  died  too  ;  Rem- 
brandt, they  say,  buried  his  happiness  in  her  grave. 
In  the  twenty  years  after  her  death  matters  went 
from  bad  to  worse  with  him,  and  nothing  is  sadder 
than  to  compare  the  two  pictures  he  painted  of 
himself,  which  are  now  in  the  Louvre.  In  the 
first  he  is  the  young  man  on  the  eve  of  a  happy 
marriage,  full  of  brave  hopes,  keen  and  ardent.  In 
the  second,  one  of  his  finest  portraits,  he  is  a  broken 
man;  his  hair  is  grey,  his  forehead  deeply  lined 
with  care  and  thought.  We  see  the  same  contrast 
in  the  National  Gallery  ;  his  earlier  portrait  is  dated 
1640,  just  before  Saskia's  death;  it  shows  him 
strong,  robust,  self-reliant,  clad  in  fur  and  velvet 
and  fine  linen.  The  second,  painted  twenty  years 
later,  is  the  portrait  of  a  man  broken  with  trouble, 
his  face  lined  with  anxiety.  Old  faces,  worn  by  the 
tragic  experiences  of  life,  were  always  among  his 
favourite  subjed:s ;  there  is  a  fine  portrait  of  an  old 
woman  in  the  National  Gallery,  not  painted  till 
nearly  the  end  of  his  life ;  her  face  is  seared  by  little 
wrinkles,  but  **  lovely  as  a  Lapland  night  "  ;  the 
calm  beauty  of  healthy  old  age  is  still  hers,  as  she 
sits  there  calmly  in  the  peaked  cap  that  shows  her 
widowhood,  and  her  tasselled  pocket-handkerchief 
in  her  ancient  hand. 

Rembrandt   lived   with   none   of  the   reasonable 
magnificence    that    distinguished    Rubens,    but    he 

144 


I 


REMBRANDT 

spent  vast  sums  on  his  colledions ;  they  seemed  to 
be  his  way  of  expressing  some  strange,  secret 
desire  for  splendour  and  mystery  and  romance.  But 
in  the  evil  days  which  befell  him,  he  was  twice 
forced  by  his  creditors  to  sell  the  whole  of  these 
treasures,  the  suits  of  armour,  "  the  coloured  rags  " 
of  which  the  catalogue  speaks,  probably  draperies 
and  bits  of  brocades  he  had  used  for  his  models,  all 
his  own  pidlures,  his  drawings  and  etchings.  The 
last  blow  to  strike  him  was  the  death  of  his  son, 
Titus,  whom  we  know  from  his  portrait  at  Hertford 
House  as  a  pretty,  long-haired  youth.  He  died 
while  still  a  voung  man  ;  after  that,  Rembrandt's 
eyesight  failed  him,  and  death  came,  mercifully,  to 
release  him  on  Tuesday,  October  8,  1669,  "in  his 
house  at  the  Rozengracht,  opposite  the  Doolhof," 
as  the  Church  Register  says;  no  other  record  is 
given  in  the  chronicles  of  Amsterdam  touching  the 
death  of  this  great  man. 

Rembrandt  was  a  member  of  the  Reformed 
Church.  He  knew  his  Bible  well,  and  it  may  be 
said  to  have  been  his  only  reading,  for,  at  a  time 
when  his  house  was  full  of  treasures,  he  was  found 
to  possess  hardly  twenty  volumes  besides.  He  has 
left  nearly  four  hundred  pictures  and  etchings, 
illustratint;  Bible-stories,  and  these  have  been  called 
his  "  Bible-pidtures  by  candle-light."  You  will  see 
an  interesting  example  of  his  method  in  our  pi(^hire, 
"The     Proplietess     Hannah     and     Samuel."    You 

145  L 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

remember  Hannah  was  the  woman  of  a  sorrowful 
spirit,  to  whom  God  gave  in  her  old  age  a  httle 
son,  Samuel.  She  is  called  a  prophetess  because  of 
her  inspired  song  of  thankfulness  over  his  birth, 
"  My  heart  rejoiceth  in  the  Lord  ;  my  mouth  is 
enlarged  over  mine  enemies ;  because  I  rejoice  in 
Thy  salvation,"  that  splendid  song  of  a  Jewish 
mother's  pride  in  the  birth  of  a  male  child.  Hannah 
dedicated  her  son  to  the  service  of  God  from  his 
earliest  years,  and  in  the  picture  Rembrandt,  accord- 
ing to  his  usual  custom,  has  painted  her  as  a  frne, 
middle-aged  woman  of  his  own  day  and  rank  in  life, 
a  Bible  lying  in  her  lap,  just  closed,  for  she  had 
been  reading  to  her  child,  before  he  kneels  by  her 
side  to  say  his  prayers.  The  light  glows  from 
Hannah's  white  cloak  with  a  strange  radiance,  and 
is  reflected  in  the  heavy  folds  of  her  red  dress  and 
on  the  child's  sleeve.  All  around  in  the  lofty 
church,  where  she  is  sitting,  is  heavy  shadow  and 
a  great  emptiness,  except  where  peasants  kneel  in  a 
little  group,  as  if  at  some  shrine.  In  this  way  Rem- 
brandt indicates  Samuel's  service  in  the  temple  of 
the  Lord,  as  the  beautiful  head  of  a  winged  cherub 
carved  on  the  pillar  above  Hannah's  seat  shows  her 
child's  innocence  of  heart.  In  the  background,  a 
graceful  twisted  column  interrupts  the  gloom  ;  the 
power  of  Rembrandt's  imagination  has  transmuted 
the  old  story  into  a  work  of  art,  glowing  with  a 


strange  tenderness. 


146 


:i:,-',r  I  .   ISo„rl:.-.  I    k-  r  S. 
1111-.    1  K..1  HI.  I  1-..-.-.    HA-sNAIl    AM>   SAMt   Kl.. 
Al'Irr  I  III-  /Hiin/htf;  by  Kembraitiit  in  llir  Htiiigrmtlrr  Jloiisr  {  uJIriliuu.^ 


REMBRANDT 

In  the  gallery  at  the  Hague  is  a  wonderful 
"  Presentation  of  Christ  in  the  Temple,"  an  early 
pi(fture  ot  a  loity  interior,  filled  with  a  mysterious 
radiance  emanating  from  the  central  group  of  the 
High  Priest,  Mary,  and  the  Holy  Child,  and  play- 
ing on  the  golden  ornaments  of  the  altar,  while  it 
leaves  the  rest  of  the  crowded  church  in  deep 
shadow.  Our  "Adoration  of  the  Shepherds,"  in  the 
National  Gallery,  is  a  later  work,  but  it  comes  under 
the  same  head.  We  see  here  again  how  all  the  light 
springs  from  the  cradle  of  Him  Who  was  to  be 
the  Light  of  the  world,  and  in  its  rays  the  shepherds' 
lantern  shines  feebly. 

In  our  Gallery  is  another  picture  of  a  later  date; 
it  may  represent  Susannah  of  the  Apocrypha.  It 
is  a  marvellous  picture,  though  at  first  you  may  see 
nothing  much  in  it  but  an  ugly  woman  apparently 
washing  her  clothes  by  trampling  on  them.  But,  as 
you  look  longer,  you  will  see  the  beauty  of  the 
colour  and  of  the  warm,  delicate  lights  and  shades  ; 
and  you  will  notice  the  artist's  disregard  of  that 
which  merely  catches  the  eye. 

The  Apocrypha  furnishes  Rembrandt  with  the 
subjed:  of  a  pidture  in  the  Louvre  in  which,  at  his 
cottage-door,  the  family  of  Tobias  worships  the 
Archangel  Raphael,  by  whose  means  the  old  man's 
sight  has  been  restored.  In  the  same  place  are  two 
fine  pictures  from  New  Testament  stories,  one  repre- 
senting   the  moment  in  the  parable   of  the  Good 

147 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

Samaritan  when  the  man  who  fell  among  thieves  is 
being  tenderly  confided  to  the  innkeeper's  care.  It  is 
an  out-of-door  scene,  full  of  charm  ;  only  the  last 
rays  of  the  sun  falling  on  the  bare  walls  of  the  inn 
break  the  quiet  mystery  of  the  dying  day.  The  other 
picture,  quite  unpretending  at  first  sight,  is  his  beauti- 
ful "  Christ  at  Emmaus,'"  which  shows  us  with  what 
intensity  Rembrandt  realizes  the  scenes  he  painted. 
Our  Lord  sits  at  supper  with  His  two  Apostles, 
pale  and  thin  in  His  pilgrim's  dress.  He  breaks  the 
bread  as  at  that  other  Supper,  such  a  short  time 
before.  The  halo  round  His  head  is  palely  gold, 
but  it  fills  the  lofty,  dim-lit  room  with  its  glory, 
and,  by  an  almost  divine  inspiration,  Rembrandt 
surrounds  the  Risen  Saviour  with  an  atmosphere  of 
holy  mystery,  showing  that,  though  He  is  sitting 
there  at  the  table  with  His  faithful  friends.  He  has 
indeed  already  passed  beyond  them,  and  has  become 
part  of  the  world  of  spirits. 

There  was  in  Amsterdam,  in  Rembrandt's  day,  a 
large  and  flourishing  colony  of  Dutch  and  Portu- 
guese Jews,  whom  he  loved  to  paint  on  account  of 
their  strong,  charafteristic  features.  We  have  two 
examples  of  such  portraits  in  the  National  Gallery — 
one  a  Jew  merchant,  the  light  strong  on  his  bearded 
face  and  his  powerful  hand  under  its  fine,  ruffled 
sleeve;  the  other  a  Rabbi,  his  delicate  face  showing 
under  a  wide  velvet  cap.  Rembrandt  cared  much 
for    all    the    details    of  Jewish   life  and    for    their 

148 


REMBRANDT 

religious  customs ;  his  pictures  give  evidence  how 
carefully  he  made  use  of  this  knowledge. 

We  possess  few  landscapes  by  Rembrandt,  but 
there  are  enough  to  show  his  deep  feeling  for 
nature.  A  noticeable  one  is  in  the  Mrs.  Gardner 
Museum  in  Boston,  U.S.A.,  called  the  "  Landscape 
with  the  Obelisk,"  from  the  column  showing  up- 
right against  the  wooded  heights  beyond.  Another 
in  Cassel,  represents  a  ruined  castle  seen  on  a  hill 
against  a  glowing  sky  ;  while  a  third,  the  famous 
"  Windmill,"  which  hung  for  a  few  weeks  in  the 
National  Gallery  for  all  to  admire,  is  now  in  a 
private  collection  in  America.  The  mill  stands  high 
above  the  river,  bathed  in  a  quiet  light,  and  filling 
us  with  a  sense  of  its  solitary  power. 

In  speaking  of  Rembrandt's  work  you  must 
remember  that  his  drawings  and  etchings  exist  in 
great  numbers,  and  are  much  valued.  They,  as  well 
as  his  pidiures,  show  us  how  all  through  his  life  he 
worked  and  struggled,  caring  only  for  what  he 
knew  to  be  true;  a  **  saint  among  painters,"  as 
he  has  been  called,  revealing  to  those  who  seek  the 
best  wisdom  of  his  art. 


U9 


CHAPTER   III 

Paul   Potter  (1625-1654). 

Paul  Potter  was  a  Dutch  painter,  who,  in  his 
short  Hfe  of  twenty-nine  years,  achieved  a  great  deal 
of  work  of  high  artistic  interest.  He  came  of  a  good 
family,  and  his  father  was  an  artist  too,  though  of 
no  great  eminence.  Paul  was  a  painter  of  cattle,  and 
that  was  considered  a  drawback  to  him  in  his  profes- 
sion, as  he  found  when  he  wished  to  marry  Adriana, 
the  daughter  of  Balkenede  the  archited:  and  master 
carpenter.  The  girl's  father  asked  him  who  would 
care  to  buy  pi(flures  of  oxen  and  sheep,  when 
there  were  plenty  of  fine  pictures  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  about.  However,  he  gave  in  at  last,  and 
allowed  the  marriage.  Potter  entered  the  Painter's 
Guild  at  The  Hague,  was  patronized  by  Prince 
Maurice  of  Orange,  and  became  famous,  even  in  his 
own  day,  for  the  masterly  way  in  which  he  seized 
the  characteristics  of  the  different  animals  he  painted. 
The  Hague  is  a  charming  town,  centring  round  a 
group  of  old  buildings,  in  one  of  which,  overlooking 
a  large  lake,  the  Picfture  Gallery  is  now  housed ;  it 
is  called  the  Maurice; House,  because  it  used  to  be 
the  palace  of  Prince  Maurice.  A  great  lake  or  fish- 

150 


PAUL  POTTER 

pond  lies  behind,  and  the  house  rises  straight  out  of 
the  water,  so  that,  from  this  treasury  of  pictures, 
you  look  right  over  its  smooth  surface.  Potter's 
best-known  pi6ture,  "  The  Young  Bull,"  painted 
when  he  was  only  twenty-three,  is  there  ;  you  see 
it  in  our  illustration,  the  strong  young  animal 
clearly  outlined  against  the  sky.  The  cow  lies  at 
the  foot  of  a  pollarded  willow-tree  ;  a  little  family 
of  sheep  are  there  too  :  the  ram  with  his  twisted 
horns,  the  gentle  ewe  and  the  plump  lamb.  To  the 
right  of  the  pidture  is  a  lovely  little  landscape,  with 
meadows  and  trees,  and  a  church-spire  in  the  dis- 
tance, just  as  you  may  see  any  day  as  your  train 
speeds  south  through  the  plains  of  Holland.  The 
pi(5lure  is  on  a  large  scale,  larger  much  than  the 
Dutch  painters  usually  chose  ;  its  size  suits  the  bold 
handling  of  the  animals,  and  the  bull  stands  out  as 
if  modelled  against  the  background.  In  the  same 
Gallery  is  another  of  Potter's  pictures,  smaller  and 
less  famous,  but  more  beautiful  in  its  effect  of  at- 
mosphere. It  is  a  cow  refle(fted  in  clear  water  ;  the 
whole  landscape  is  full  of  the  spirit  of  a  fresh,  sweet 
summer  morning. 

In  the  National  Gallery  we  have  a  little  landscape 
with  cattle  of  great  beauty,  painted  only  a  few  years 
before  Potter's  death.  Everything  he  painted  was 
carefully  studied  from  nature,  and  we  are  told  tliat 
he  never  went  for  a  walk  into  the  country  without 
his  sketch-book  and  drawing-pen,  with  which   he 

151 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

noted  down  effedis  as  they  struck  him.  Volumes  of 
such  studies  were  found  after  his  death,  all  bound 
in  bearskin.  They  are  now  carefully  preserved 
among  the  art-treasures  of  Berlin,  and  are  of  great 
interest;  one  is  filled  with  studies  of  trees  ;  another 
has,  among  countless  drawings  of  animals  in  every 
position,  sketches  of  market  carts  and  waggons, 
ploughs  and  farming  implements  of  every  descrip- 
tion, most  minutely  drawn.  Boats  he  drew  too,  and 
windmills — Holland  is  full  of  windmills  to  this 
day — a  copper  milk-pail  beautifully  finished,  all 
notes  for  pictures  he  was  destined  never  to  paint. 
The  last  volume  of  the  set  has  studies  of  flowers, 
drawn  in  Indian  ink  and  washed  in  with  water- 
colour;  poppies,  crocuses,  the  cuckoo-pint,  king- 
cups, irises,  all  kinds  of  flowers,  delicately  true  to 
nature.  You  can  see  from  our  picture  of  the  bull 
how  carefully  the  dock-leaves  and  meadow-weeds 
are  painted,  on  which  the  bull's  fore-feet  are  resting. 
Sometimes,  but  more  rarely,  there  are  sketches  of 
birds  ;  and  it  is  curious  to  note  that  he  had  seen  a 
hoopoe,  and  has  drawn  him  accurately  with  his 
crest  and  little  upright  figure. 

Paul  Potter  stands  by  himself  in  his  art,  and, 
though  he  lived  partly  in  Amsterdam,  where  Rem- 
brandt was  working  with  all  the  magic  of  his  full 
maturity,  and  partly  at  Haarlem,  where  Hals  was 
producing  his  wonderful  series  of  groups,  neither 
master  appears  to  have  exercised  the  least  influence 

152 


CUYP 

over  him.  His  outlook,  his  method  of  painting, 
were  all  his  own  ;  he  worked  patiently,  humbly, 
unwcariedly,  as  if  he  knew  how  short  a  time  lay 
before  him.  He  had  no  pupils,  founded  no  school, 
but  he  has  left  to  all  artists  the  brilliant  example  of 
a  life  passed  in  conscientious  effort.  It  has  been  said 
that  he  was  a  genius  who  rarely  displayed  talent, 
and  that  is  a  true  criticism,  for  he  strove  to  paint 
sincerely  what  he  saw,  without  a  thought  of  ap- 
plause to  be  gained  or  patrons  to  be  Battered. 

CuYP  (1620-1691). 

Paul  Potter  was,  as  you  have  seen,  an  animal 
painter,  who  used  landscape  chiefly  as  a  background 
for  his  pictures  ;  we  now  come  to  Cuyp,  a  landscape 
painter,  who  introduced  cattle  into  his  landscapes. 
He  loved  best  to  paint  a  country  scene,  through 
which  a  quiet  river  flows  with  cows  standing  or 
lying  on  its  banks,  or  perhaps  a  company  of  horse- 
men grouped  on  a  little  hillside,  enjoying  the  wide 
view.  Sometimes  he  painted  broad  rivers  alive  with 
shipping  under  calm  summer  skies,  and  his  work  is 
always  conspicuous  for  its  clear  light,  whether  he 
paints  the  cool  freshness  of  early  morning,  the  heat 
of  noonday,  or  the  rich  glow  of  the  setting  sun. 
His  animals  lack  the  distinctive  grace  of  his  land- 
scapes, but  all  his  pidures  were  highly  valued  in 
his  own  country  during  his  lifetime,  and  for  many 

M3 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

years  after  his  death.  The  first  foreigners  to  appreci- 
ate his  delicate  and  beautiful  work  were  the  English, 
about  the  time  of  George  III.  :  the  country  gentle- 
men of  that  period  collecfled  his  pictures  and  were 
willing  to  pay  good  prices  for  them,  and  it  is  for 
that  reason  that  so  much  of  his  best  work  is  to  be 
found  in  England. 

One  specially  good  example  of  Cuyp's  work  is  in 
the  Dulwich  Gallery,  where  the  cattle  are  in  the 
shadow,  and  stand  out  darkly  against  the  warm 
colours  of  a  river;  another  in  the  same  Gallery 
shows  us  herdsmen  driving  cattle  on  a  warm,  still 
summer  evening.  The  National  Gallery,  too,  is  rich 
in  Cuyps.  They  hang  together,  covering  nearly  one 
whole  wall  ;  looking  at  them  is  like  a  long,  slow 
walk  through  sweet  country  places  on  a  soft  summer 
day.  You  see  flights  of  birds  crossing  the  blue  of 
the  skies,  the  sun  shining  on  the  backs  of  white 
horses  and  on  the  white  shirts  of  sturdy  children  ; 
or  you  cross  the  meadows  by  the  raised,  grassy 
causeway,  looking  towards  a  little  township  full  of 
windmills  ;  or  you  see  the  cows,  collected  tor  milk- 
ing-time,  among  the  blackberry  brambles  and  dock- 
leaves  in  the  foreground  ;  and,  again,  you  see  red- 
coated  riders  on  dappled-grey  horses  fording  a  river  ; 
or  a  group  of  cattle  at  evening-time,  all  glorious  in  the 
glow  of  sunset.  In  the  Louvre  there  is  a  beautiful 
landscape,  a  shepherd  playing  his  flute,  his  back  to 
a   calm   sheet  of  water,  his   cattle  grazing   around 

154 


I 


CUYP 

him,  and  across  the  water  the  skyline  broken  by  a 
high  church-tower.  Cuyp  painted  winter  scenes, 
also  one  of  fishermen  at  work  on  the  frozen  Meuse, 
the  ice  lit  up  by  the  bright  sunshine — everywhere 
sunshine,  for,  as  it  has  been  well  said,  Cuyp  first  set 
the  sun  in  the  sky,  and  filled  his  pidures  full  of 
light,  so  that  they  give  joy  to  those  who  study  them. 

Almost  all  we  know  of  Cuyp  comes  to  us  through 
his  pictures,  but  we  learn  that,  when  he  was  nearly 
forty,  he  married  a  rich  wife,  a  widow,  Cornelia 
van  den  Corput.  He  lived  at  Dordrecht,  and  thanks 
to  her  fortune  and  to  his  growing  prosperity,  he 
ended  his  days  in  comfort. 

His  work  may  be  compared  with  that  of  the 
French  artist  Claude,  his  senior  by  twenty  years. 
Claude  painted  in  Italy,  and  if  you  look  at  his 
"  Seaport  at  Sunset  "  in  the  National  Gallery,  you 
will  see  the  anchored  ships  bright  in  the  rays  of 
the  setting  sun.  Claude,  like  Cuyp,  loved  to  paint 
the  effects  of  sunshine.  But  Cuyp  stands  alone  in 
his  power  of  saturating  his  pictures  in  golden  light, 
and  it  is  chieHy  by  that  quality  we  know  and  value 
the  work  of  tliis  early  landscape  painter. 

HoBBEMA  (1638- 1 709). 

Hobbema  is  a  landscape  painter;  of  his  life  we 
know  very  little,  just  the  date  of  his  birth,  that  of  his 
marriage,  1 668,  and  the  fad  that  he  died  in  poverty  in 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

Amsterdam,  in  the  Rozengracht,  the  very  same  street 
in  which  Rembrandt  had  died  forty  years  before. 
Like  so  many  of  his  contemporaries,  his  pictures 
found  Httle  or  no  sale  during  his  Hfetime,  and  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years  after  his  death  his  name 
was  not  to  be  found  in  any  dicflionary  of  art.  The 
first   time   his    pidiures  were    included   in   any   art 
catalogue  was  in  1739.  He  painted  mostly  country 
scenes  from  the   Province  of  Guelderland,  villages 
embowered  in  green,  watermills,  trads  of  country 
broken  by  quiet  rows  of  trees,  fields  and  meadows, 
pools  reflecfling  the  sky.  Sometimes  he  painted  canals, 
or  the  quays  and  walls  of  little  towns  ;  once  or  twice 
he  added   a   ruined    castle.   His   trees   are  carefully 
studied  from  nature.  His  best-known  pi6ture  is  in  the 
National  Gallery,  "The  Avenue  at  Middelharnis." 
Most  towns  and  villages  in  Holland  are  approached 
by  just  such  avenues,  which,  when  the  trees  are  not 
lopped,  as  in  the  pifture,  afford  pleasant  shade   to 
those  who  walk  out  into  the  country  in  summer- 
time.  Here  the  long,  straight  road  is  enclosed  by 
tall,  formal  beech-trees,  and  on  both  sides  of  the 
road   are  ditches,  into  which  the  water  drains  for 
the  use  of  the  market-gardens  beyond  ;  a  gardener 
is   at   work   in   one   of  the  prim  gardens  with   its 
grafted    bush-stems.   In    the    distance    is   the    little 
town   of  Middelharnis,  with   its   red  roofs  and   its 
church-tower  and  quaint  belfry.  The  avenue  widens 
out  to  the  foreground :   the  whole  pidture  is  com- 

156 


HOBBEMA 

posed  in  an  original  and  charming  way,  and  is  yet 
so  true  to  nature  you  are  reminded  of  it  a  hundred 
times  as  you  walk  about  the  roads  and  fields  of 
Holland. 

The  National  Gallery  has  several  other  pic^lures 
of  his :  one  of  the  ruined  Castle  of  Brerode;  another, 
a  landscape  seen  in  showery  weather  ;  and  one,  a 
village  with  watermills ;  his  subje^ls  constantly 
recur,  as  you  see  from  those  in  Hertford  House  too; 
they  are  painted,  however,  in  all  variety  of  light — 
some  in  sunset  glow,  some  in  clear  morning  sun- 
shine, some  bright  with  the  spring. 

Though  Hobbema  lived  till  1709,  few  of  his 
pictures,  as  we  learn  from  their  dates,  were  painted 
later  than  1670.  The  beautiful  "  Avenue  "  bears  the 
date  1689,  and  is  apparently  his  last.  They  say  that 
after  his  marriage,  his  wife's  influence  got  him  a 
little  post  in  the  Custom-house,  and  his  life  as  a 
petty  official  interfered  perhaps  with  his  work  as 
an  artist. 

When  we  consider  the  landscapes  of  Hobbema 
and  the  other  Dutch  masters,  we  must  remember 
that  they  were  the  first  who  painted  movement  in 
the  sky,  as  seen  by  the  passage  of  the  clouds  and 
the  whole  changing  pageant  of  the  heavens. 
Before  them,  painters  had  been  satisfied  with  paint- 
ing the  colour  of  the  sky  and  indicating  great  airy 
spaces  by  shades  of  blue,  varied  by  white  or  grey- 
ish clouds.   But  in  the   Dutch  landscapes    the    sky 

157 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

occupies  sometimes  half  the  picture  ;  from  it  we 
know  the  season  of  the  year  and  the  time  of  day  : 
the  art  of  painting  it  became  one  of  the  problems  to 
be  conquered.  No  painter  after  them  could  ignore 
the  sky.  The  study  of  it  and  its  representation 
became  one  of  the  evidences  of  their  sincerity, 
as  they  patiently  observed  Nature  in  all  her  moods. 


158 


CHAPTER  IV 

Jan   Steen  (1626-1679). 

Jan  Steen,  a  typical  painter  of  Dutch  life,  was 
born  at  Leyden,  one  of  the  University  towns  of 
Holland.  He  was  a  brewer's  son,  and  learnt  his 
trade  from  his  father,  even  keeping  a  tavern  him- 
self, as  some  say,  while  he  carried  on  his  art  of  a 
painter.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Painters*  Guild 
at  Haarlem,  and  in  spite  of  his  jovial,  drink-loving 
habits,  he  must  have  been  astonishingly  industrious, 
observing  the  peculiarities  of  the  people  around 
him,  even  while  he  shared  their  vices,  and  painting 
always  with  rare  skill  and  truthfulness.  He  began 
by  drawing  his  own  family,  sitting  in  a  room 
"  about  as  orderly  as  a  Spanish  guard-room,"  we  are 
told,  with  dogs  and  cats  and  children  tumbling  over 
one  another,  his  wife  in  her  easy  chair,  the  monkey 
winding  up  the  clock,  and  he  himself  comfortably 
drinking  from  a  large  wineglass,  unmoved  by  the 
confusion  around.  He  painted  the  signboard  for 
his  own  inn,  a  picture  of  Peace,  her  garland  in  her 
hand.  They  tell  us  that  when  his  vats  and  casks 
were  all  empty,  and  he  had  no  money  left  to  buy 
more  with,  he  would  pull  down  his  signboard  and 

159 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

set  to  work,  painting  pi61:ures  till  he  had  made 
enough  money  to  set  his  inn  going  again.  It  must 
have  been  worth  a  man's  while  to  frequent  Steen's 
tavern,  for,  in  spite  of  his  riotous  way  of  living  he 
had  a  clever  tongue  and  an  adiive  mind,  and  his 
shrewd  remarks  about  painting  proved  that  he  had 
a  real  knowledge  of  his  art.  The  very  genius  of 
the  Dutch  charafter  appears  in  his  pidlures — their 
humour,  tenacity  to  a  few  ideas,  power  of  concen- 
tration. To  that  was  added  Steen's  own  inexhaus- 
tible good  spirits,  his  love  of  fun,  and  knowledge  of 
his  subjects.  English  people  have  always  appreciated 
these  qualities,  and  many  of  his  pictures  are  now  in 
England. 

We  have  one  Jan  Steen  in  the  National  Gallery, 
"  The  Music  Master,"  bored  with  his  task,  one 
pupil  sitting  at  the  harpsichord,  and  the  next 
coming  in  with  his  lute.  The  harpsichord  is 
beautifully  inlaid  and  painted  with  mottoes  for  the 
edification  of  those  who  played  on  it.  Here  we 
read,  "  A6ta  Virum  Probant,"  and  **  Soli  Deo 
Gloria,"  together  with  the  important  statement, 
"  Johanis  Steen  fecit."  We  have  also  a  recent  gift,  a 
charming  little  pi6ture  from  the  Salting  Collection  ; 
it  is  a  group  of  skittle-players,  standing  about  in 
the  full,  limpid  light  of  a  summer  afternoon,  under 
the  delicate  tracery  of  the  leafy  trees.  It  has  some- 
thing of  the  Hogarth  quality,  because  the  people 
are  really  interested  in  their  own  concerns,  and  are 

1 60 


JAN  STEEN 

not,  as  in  so  many  Dutch  pidures  of  the  period, 
only  grouped  to  carry  out  some  charming  design  of 
the  painter. 

Steen  dehghted  in  children,  and  was  never  weary 
of  showing  them  at  their  merry  tricks  ;  he  gives  us 
boys  at  school,  boys  teasing  the  cat,  or  stealing 
money  from  their  roistering  parents*  pockets.  He 
paints  sunlight  with  great  effedt,  sometimes  lying  in 
warm  patches  outside  an  open  door,  sometimes 
playing  on  the  trunks  of  trees.  He  was  much 
interested  in  doctors  and  their  way  of  handling 
their  patients.  One  such  picture,  now  in  the 
Maurice  House  at  The  Hague,  makes  a  delightful 
interior.  The  sick  lady  lies  in  her  spacious  bed 
with  its  high,  fringed  canopy,  the  velvet  curtains 
are  drawn  back,  and  she  is  looking  languidly  at  the 
lady  in  shining  satin,  who  is  bringing  the  black- 
robed  do(ftor  a  glass  of  wine  for  his  refreshment.  On 
the  wall  over  the  bed  is  a  great  oil-painting  of  the 
"  Rape  of  the  Sabines,"  placed  there  slyly  by  Steen, 
just  as  Hogarth  later  loved  to  decorate  the  walls  in 
his  pictures  with  appropriate  subjects.  The  same 
story  is  treated  a  little  differently  in  a  picture  in  the 
Amsterdam  Gallery  ;  here  the  lady  is  sitting  up, 
dressed  in  a  skirt  of  yellow  silk  and  a  silver-grey 
jacket,  edged  with  ermine.  She  rests  her  pretty 
kerchiefed  head  on  a  pillow,  while  the  dodlor,  his 
cloak  draped  over  his  suit  of  black  velvet,  holds  her 
shapely    wrist    respedfully,    taking    her    pulse.   In 

l6l  M 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

another  pid:ure  at  The  Hague  the  lady  is  in  green 
and  blue  ;  the  do(5lor  wears  a  tall  steeple-crown  hat 
and,  as  in  all  the  other  pictures,  he  keeps  it  on  in 
the  room  ;  he  carries  his  long,  loose  gloves  in  his 
left  hand.  The  room  is  high  and  finely  pro- 
portioned, the  chimney-piece  is  richly  carved, 
several  fine  pictures  hang  on  the  walls,  and  on  the 
high  mantelpiece  a  gay  statuette  of  Cupid  is  seen, 
maliciously  aiming  an  arrow  at  the  fair  patient's 
heart. 

The  travelling  quack-do6lor  is  represented  too  in 
several  charming  out-of-door  scenes.  In  one  he 
stands  under  an  oak-tree,  offering  his  cures  to  the 
village  people  on  a  fine  summer  day  ;  his  counter  is 
improvised  with  a  stout  board  on  the  top  of  a 
barrel.  In  another  the  doctor  has  just  drawn  a 
tooth  from  an  unhappy  patient ;  the  admiring 
villagers  are  grouped  around,  and  in  the  back- 
ground leafy  trees  are  seen,  and  the  church-spire 
nestling  among  them.  In  all  Steen's  pictures  there 
is  a  boundless  store  of  happy  invention ;  he  inter- 
ested himself  in  everything  he  saw,  and  he  knew 
exadily  how  to  paint  it.  Therefore  his  pidtures  will 
not  fail  to  interest  all  those  who,  in  succeeding 
generations,  care  to  be  shown  human  life  with  its 
varying  aspects  of  fun  and  drollery. 


162 


PIETER  DE  HOOCH 

PiETER  DE   Hooch   (1629- 1677). 

In  considering  the  high  state  of  civiHzation  to 
which  the  Dutch  people  attained  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  you  must  not  forget  that  Amsterdam  was 
at  that  period  the  centre  of  the  financial  acftivitics  of 
the  whole  world.  Much  money  was  earned  and 
spent  there,  and  commercial  enterprise  was  at  its 
height.  Quite  early  in  the  century  the  Dutch  East 
and  West  India  Companies  were  founded,  and  from 
those  far-off  countries  of  romance  riches  flowed  into 
all  corners  of  the  small,  ambitious  Northern  land. 
Strange  spices  were  brought  from  overseas,  and 
curious  bulbs,  to  flower  presently  into  exquisite 
tulips,  all  purple  and  gold.  Some  brightness  from 
those  lands  of  sunshine  seems  to  have  been  brought 
into  the  grey  monotony  of  Holland,  and  to  have 
come  to  life  unexpectedly  under  its  cheerless  skies. 
You  see  it  in  some  piece  of  furniture  made  of  rare 
foreign  woods  and  carved  with  exotic  flowers,  or  in 
some  bits  of  precious  china  from  the  East,  carefully 
set  in  rows  on  the  high  mantelshelves,  bringing  the 
excitement  of  romance  into  the  sober  rooms,  whose 
polished  orderliness  tells  of  scrupulous  daily  care. 

What  ideal  beauty  was  to  the  Italian  painter,  this 
worship  of  the  real  was  to  the  Dutchman,  and 
among  their  artists  there  was  no  one  more  sensitive 
to  the  beauty  of  the  everyday  life  around  him  than 
Pieter  de  Hooch,  that  "  painter  of  sunshine,"  as  he 

163 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

has  been  called.  This  charming  painter  lives  for  us 
chiefly  in  his  works ;  we  know  little  of  his  life, 
even  the  dates  of  his  birth  and  death  are  only 
reckoned  approximately  from  those  given  by  him 
on  his  signed  pictures.  His  father  was  a  mason  in 
Rotterdam,  and  his  mother  had  been  a  nurse.  They 
seem  to  have  been  in  easy  circumstances,  and  he 
was  sent  to  Amsterdam  to  learn  to  be  a  painter.  He 
must  have  arrived  there  a  few  years  after  Rembrandt 
had  finished  his  celebrated  "  Night  Watch."  But 
de  Hooch  did  not  make  his  home  in  the  capital, 
and  his  first  picture  was  painted  in  Delft  at  the  age 
of  twenty-four.  Here  he  lived  for  the  best  part  of 
his  artistic  life  so  quietly  that  we  look  in  vain  for 
details  as  to  his  personality  and  manner  of  life.  But 
we  need  not  seek  to  know  more  ;  the  master  lives 
for  us  in  those  sun-lit,  quiet  courtyards  and  spacious, 
cool  rooms  he  has  painted  so  entrancingly.  Delft 
must  have  become  the  home  of  his  affediions,  for 
something  of  it  appears  in  most  of  his  best  pid:ures, 
the  tower  of  its  New  Church,  its  abundant  trees, 
and  the  peaceful  canals  in  which  the  gabled  roofs 
and  the  low  walls  of  its  little  quays  are  so  calmly 
mirrored. 

Through  his  pictures  the  daily  life  of  his  time 
comes  home  vividly  before  our  eyes  ;  we  see  the 
lady  at  her  toilet,  or  writing  her  letters  ;  we  see  a 
family  concert,  or  jolly  cavaliers  at  their  ease,  drink- 
ing their  wine  or  chatting  with  their  women-folk. 

164 


PIETER  DE  HOOCH 

We  see,  too,  the  life  of  the  servants  who  ministered 
to  the  famihes  of  quahty  ;  they  are  preparing  the 
fish  for  dinner,  sweeping  the  floors  or  shaking  up 
the  bedding.  Some  say  that  de  Hooch  had  him- 
self been  a  servant,  and  knew  their  ways  from 
experience  ;  we  are  even  told  the  name  of  his 
master,  Justus  de  la  Grange,  a  kindly  fellow  who 
later  became  a  bankrupt  and  emigrated  to  America 
with  his  family. 

What  Rembrandt  did  when  he  introduced 
shadow  into  the  world  of  Dutch  art,  Pieter  de 
Hooch  did  with  sunlight,  when  he  shows  us  those 
mild  rays  of  a  Northern  sun,  filtering  through 
narrow  window-panes,  and  falling  in  broad  splashes 
on  walls,  bare  or  hung  with  Spanish  leather,  on 
floors  paved  in  geometrical  designs  of  black,  blue,  or 
white  marble,  or  on  the  plain  tiles  of  kitchens.  His 
sunlight  dances,  too,  on  the  pi6tures  hanging  on  the 
walls,  waking  them  to  a  new  life  ;  on  the  brass 
warming-pan  hanging  conveniently  near  the  cur- 
tained bed  ;  on  the  pretty  bird-cage  on  its  hook, 
which  shelters  behind  its  shining  bars  a  little 
parakeet  or  some  strange  bird  from  foreign  parts. 

You  can  see  four  of  de  Hooch's  pictures  in  the 
National  Gallery  :  our  illustration  reproduces  one 
of  them.  The  room  shown  has  a  raftered  ceiling 
and  a  floor  of  black  and  white  marble  ;  two  small- 
paned  windows  admit  the  light  ;  daylight  is  here, 
as  always,  his  supreme  achievement.    Over  the  wide, 

165 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

comfortable  chimney-piece  is  a  large  oil-painting  of 
some  sacred  subjed:  ;  the  map  of  the  United 
Provinces  is  nailed  on  the  wall  with  a  fine  decora- 
tive effe6t.  At  a  small  table  two  well-dressed  men 
sit  to  drink  their  wine,  which  a  woman  in  a  black 
velvet  jacket  presents  to  them  One  man  has  his 
plumed  hat  on  his  knee,  for  comfort,  not  civility  ; 
the  other  is  wearing  his  broad-brimmed  beaver.  A 
maid-servant  is  bringing  in  a  smoking  brazier ;  you 
will  notice  that  she  has  been  painted  as  an  after- 
thought, the  marble  of  the  floor  appearing  through 
the  thin  paint  of  her  petticoat.  Two  other  courtyard 
scenes  are  in  the  same  gallery,  both  marked  by  the 
same  exquisite  orderliness,  to  this  day  chara(fleristic 
of  Dutch  burgher-life,  and  a  great  contrast  to  the 
slovenliness  of  the  rooms  in  Steen's  tavern-pi(5tures. 
Those  of  de  Hooch  are  so  clean,  so  well-swept  and 
tidy  that  there  is  even  a  sort  of  cheerful  desolation 
about  them.  Above  both  is  the  pale  blue  sky  of  a 
Dutch  summer,  flecked  by  fleecy  clouds.  In  one 
pi(flure  the  buttress  of  an  old  wall  is  seen,  and  a 
porch  built  of  white  stone  and  red  brick  alternately. 
Above  the  arch  and  half  hidden  by  a  branch  of 
straggling  vine  is  a  panel  with  an  inscription  in 
Dutch  and  the  date  1614.  The  building  itself  is 
older  far  ;  it  had  been  the  Cloister  of  S.  Jerome, 
turned  after  the  Reformation  into  a  private  house. 
In  the  other  picfturc  it  is  evidently  early  spring  ;  a 
leafless  tree  is  seen,  and  the  light   is  clear,  even  a 

166 


INTKRIHR    OK    A    1>IT<  H    IIOISK. 
{/iy  Pli-trr  df  Hooch  in  thr  Salional  Gallery,  l.oinion.') 


PIETER  DE  HOOCH 

little  hard.  The  master  of  the  house  is  walking 
towards  us,  down  a  long  pathway,  in  his  big  white 
collar  and  square-toed  shoes  with  large  rosettes. 
Every  detail  of  the  little,  clean  court  is  given  with 
extraordinary  fidelity  :  the  pump,  the  broom,  the 
platter,  the  bowl  ;  it  is  an  objedi-lesson  in  admirable 
housewifery. 

In  the  Wallace  Colle(5tion,  you  may  see  an 
interior,  probably  from  Amsterdam,  where  de 
Hooch  lived  for  the  last  years  of  his  life  ;  the 
house  stands  on  the  side  of  a  canal,  and  through  the 
open  door  the  street  and  houses  opposite  look  con- 
fusingly near,  so  narrow  is  the  canal  between. 
Another  picture  in  the  same  gallery  is  the  "  Woman 
peeling  Potatoes,"  very  characteristic  of  de  Hooch's 
methods.  The  mother  smiles  at  her  little  girl  as  she 
puts  a  long  curl  of  potato-peel  into  her  hand.  The 
child  is  dressed  like  a  grown-up  person,  stiff  and 
solid,  but  she  wears  the  long  leading-strings  of 
babyhood,  which  you  still  see  on  undergraduates' 
gowns.  The  mother's  coat  of  rich  velvet,  edged 
witii  white  fur,  makes  you  perhaps  wonder  at  her 
homely  occupation,  but  she  represents  quite  faith- 
fully the  life  of  her  time.  We  have  a  letter  describ- 
ing a  visit  paid  to  the  widow  of  our  ancient  enemy, 
de  Ruyter.  It  tells  how  the  good  lady  had  had  a 
fall  while  hanging  out  her  linen  to  dry,  and  how, 
before  this  accident,  it  had  always  been  her  habit 
to  go  to  the  market  herself,  licr  basket  on  her  arm. 

167 


DUTCH  PAINTERS 

The  fine  Renaissance  chimney-piece  in  the  room, 
with  its  tiles  and  carvings,  the  fire-Hght  playing  on 
the  andirons,  the  window  just  open,  its  sunny 
refleftion  beautifying  the  bare  wall  against  which 
the  woman  sits,  all  make  a  pi(5lure  such  as  de 
Hooch  loved  to  paint — a  little  world  of  calm 
domesticities,  caressed  and  gilded  by  sunshine,  in 
which  he  places  a  woman  resigned,  smiling  and 
gentle,  busy  with  her  child,  looking  well  to  the 
ways  of  her  household.  You  will  see  pidlures  by 
him  in  many  galleries,  in  Berlin,  in  the  Louvre,  in 
Amsterdam,  in  Niiremberg,  and  they  will  always 
call  to  you  to  pause  and  consider,  so  full  are  they 
of  lovable  qualities  and  amazing  excellences. 

He  had,  to  an  astonishing  degree,  the  sense  of 
perspe6live,  and  seldom  content  with  showing  us 
the  three  walls  of  a  room,  he  adds  open  doors  and 
vistas  of  rooms  beyond  with  passages  down  which 
his  figures  advance  or  retreat,  on  their  way  to  or 
from  the  courtyard  or  the  road  beyond.  Often  his 
people  turn  their  backs  on  us,  revealing  their  inten- 
tions only  by  a  lifted  hand,  or  a  back  bent  over  the 
raised  lid  of  a  water-tub  ;  nothing  could  be  more 
real  ;  it  is  like  the  admirably  planned  scene  of  some 
interesting  stage-play  of  everyday  life. 

As  with  his  people,  so  with  the  inanimate  obje6ls, 
which,  in  his  pictures,  have  something  intimate 
and  touching  about  them,  so  beautifully  are  they 
placed  in   the  general  scheme   of  the  composition. 

i68 


PIETER  DE  HOOCH 

We  come  to  care  for  the  little  mirrors  with  their 
broad,  black  frames,  the  shining  tables  and  chairs, 
the  wicker-baskets  filled  with  wool  or  linen,  just  as 
we  care  for  our  own  possessions.  Everything  stands 
there,  well-kept,  ready  for  use,  admirable  for  its 
purpose.  We  feel  we  have  been  admitted  into  all 
the  intimacies  of  a  wholesome  daily  life,  full  of 
orderliness,  that  modest  luxury  of  the  poor  no  less 
than  of  the  rich.  It  is  de  Hooch's  favourite  luxury, 
and  it  breathes  from  the  heart  of  all  his  homes, 
tranquil  with  the  poetry  of  subdued  sunlight. 

The  secret  of  de  Hooch's  charm  is  that  he  can 
show  us  the  hidden  beauty  of  common  things,  and 
interpret  the  mystery  of  those  quiet  housewives 
with  their  expression  of  soft  harshness  and  their  con- 
stant dignity  of  attitude.  He  gives  us  the  same  im- 
pression of  half-wistful  sadness  as  Dijrer,  though 
the  German  artist  painted  under  brighter  skies  ;  that 
sadness  which  is  almost  joy  in  the  silent  country  of 
Holland,  where  people  speak  only  to  express  some 
necessary  thought,  and  live  austere  lives,  illuminated 
by  his  art  with  the  grace  of  falling  sunlight. 


169 


PART  VI 
THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

The  Spaniards  are  a  grave  race,  and  the  sunshine 
of  their  country  only  makes  the  shadows  deeper. 
Spanish  pidlures  are  grave,  too  ;  their  colours  are 
deep  and  sober  ;  they  make  us  think  of  sheltered 
rooms  with  half-closed  shutters,  and  churches  dark 
in  contrast  to  the  hot  streets  without.  The  Spaniards 
liked  to  paint  scenes  taken  from  real  life,  even  when, 
as  mostly  happens,  their  pi(5lures  are  of  sacred  sub- 
je(Sls.  For  Spain  is,  before  all  things,  a  religious 
country,  and  the  priests  are  all-powerful.  In  old  times 
they  had  the  right  to  condemn  anything  in  art  which 
appeared  to  them  unsuitable,  and  they  laid  down 
strict  laws  with  regard  to  sacred  pic^tures.  Thus, 
angels  must  have  wings,  and  the  Madonna  must  be 
clothed  in  robes  of  blue  and  white,  long  enough  to 
hide  her  feet.  Pictures  were  hung  in  churches  and 
chapels  in  order  that  people  who  could  not  read 
might  learn  the  dodrines  of  their  faith  from  them, 
and  the  scenes  painted  had  to  be  realistic,  so  that 
they   might   be   easily   recognized   by  the   ignorant. 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

This  had  a  far-reaching  effect,  as  you  may  imagine, 
and  nowhere  are  Crucifixions  represented  with  more 
terrible  realism  than  in  Spain.  The  Inquisition  in 
Spain  tortured  those  who  did  not  practise  the  re- 
ligion of  the  country,  and  the  Christ  in  Whose 
Name  these  cruelties  were  done  had  to  be  shown, 
too,  in  His  Agony.  You  remember  how  in  the 
Dutch  and  Flemish  pictures  the  painters  delighted 
in  showing  their  own  country,  to  alien  eyes  so  flat 
and  dull,  as  a  lovely  land  in  all  seasons  of  the  year, 
their  own  quiet  homes  as  full  of  peaceful  beauty. 
You  find  nothing  of  that  idealism  in  Spanish  art. 
But  you  will  find  much  to  charm  and  interest  you, 
and  one  master,  Velasquez,  whose  name  is  greatly 
honoured  as  one  of  the  supreme  artists  of  the  world. 
Besides  Velasquez,  and  before  him  in  point  of  date, 
is  El  Greco,  of  foreign  birth,  but  from  the  first 
always  counted  among  the  Spaniards  ;  Murillo, 
whose  pictures  differ  widely  from  the  majority  of 
sober  Spanish  work  ;  and  Goya,  different  again,  as 
you  will  see,  in  that  he  painted  for  the  most  part 
after  the  French  Revolution  had  shaken  Europe  to 
its  foundations. 


172 


'^ 


CHAPTER  I 

El  Greco   (1545-1614). 

With  El  Greco  you  must  turn  back  to  the  six- 
teenth  century,  to  the  time  of  Hals  and   Rubens, 
but   to   a   country   far    removed    indeed   from   the 
Netherlands  where  they  worked.  Theotocopuli  was 
his  real  name,  and  he  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  foreign 
painter   who    worked    in    Spain,   and    was    always 
called  "  El  Greco,"  or,  the  Greek.  His  name  will 
be  for  ever  associated   with    the  town  of  Toledo, 
that  romantic,  high-walled  city  standing  on  its  hill- 
side above  the  yellow  waters  of  the  Tagus.    By  birth 
he  was  a  Cretan  ;  this  we  know  from  several  of  his 
signed  pi(flures.  He  must  have  been  in  Venice,  and 
he  had  studied  the  painting  of  Titian,  whose   in- 
fluence is  clearly  shown  in  his  earlier  compositions. 
By  1577  he  was  settled  in  Toledo,  and  had  already 
begun   a    pi(flure  for  the   Cathedral    there,   which 
still  hangs  in  the  sacristy.  It  represents  the  "  Part- 
ing of  our  Lord's  Raiment,"  and  you  will  see  from 
the   first    glance    how    different    this    man's    work 
is    from    any   you    have    before    seen.    Round    the 
central  figure  of  Christ,  in  a  narrow  space,  many 
figures  are  clustered,  all  with   the  same  long,  thin 

173 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

faces,  yet  with  varying  expressions.  The  face  of 
Christ  Himself  is  of  singular  beauty.  Near  Him  is 
a  tall  bearded  man  in  black  armour,  the  Centurion 
— El  Greco's  own  portrait,  they  tell  us.  Though 
so  crowded  with  heads,  the  composition  of  the 
picflure  is  quite  clear,  and  the  impression  of  the 
whole  scene  is  exceedingly  vivid.  The  fame  of  it 
was  so  great  that  the  King,  Philip  II.,  the  hus- 
band of  our  Queen  Mary,  ordered  him  to  paint  an 
altar-piece  for  the  Escorial  Chapel;  but  this  pidlure 
did  not  meet  with  the  royal  approval.  All  his  life 
El  Greco  loved  to  paint  in  what  we  should  now 
call  an  unconventional  manner,  giving  his  patrons 
what  they  often  neither  expected  nor  wished  for. 
Four  years  later,  however,  he  painted,  for  one  of 
the  Cardinals,  his  greatest  work,  "  The  Burial  of 
Count  Orgaz,"  and  from  our  illustration  you  will 
see  the  astonishing  force  and  originality  of  its  con- 
ception. The  picture  was  given  to  the  Church  of 
Santo  Tome  in  Toledo,  a  church  which  had  been 
rebuilt  by  Count  Orgaz  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
To  reward  this  munificence,  S.  Stephen  and 
S.  Augustine  had,  so  said  the  legend,  come  down 
from  Heaven,  and  buried  the  Count  with  their  own 
hands.  In  the  foreground  of  the  picture  you  see  the 
entombment.  Count  Orgaz  is  in  full  armour,  black, 
richly  inlaid  with  gold  ;  his  dead  face  shows  calm 
above  his  ruff;  his  mailed  hands  are  meekly  folded. 
S.  Augustine,  in  his  gorgeous  vestments,  is  the  old 

17+ 


THK    tU;KIAI.   OK   COUNT     I>  OKGA/. 
(After  the  picture  by  El  Greco  at  Toledo.) 


,1  H  U  .V 

•  '    TH; 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


EL  GRECO 

man  with  a  white  beard,  supporting  his  head  ; 
S.  Stephen,  young  and  dark-haired,  holds  his  feet. 
The  kneeh'ng  boy,  dressed  as  a  page,  and  holding  a 
lighted  torch,  may  have  been  the  Count's  son,  or 
he  was,  as  some  think,  painted  from  El  Greco's 
little  daughter.  One  priest,  in  full  canonicals,  reads 
the  Office  for  the  Burial  of  the  Dead  from  his 
book  ;  behind  are  the  finely  painted  heads  of  the 
attendant  nobles,  with  pointed  beards  and  high 
ruffs.  Some  of  these  are  certainly  portraits  of 
Spanish  noblemen  of  El  Greco's  day.  Above  them 
the  soul  of  the  dead  man  enters  the  kingdom  of 
the  blest.  You  will  notice  the  curious  flat  clouds, 
and  the  tremendously  elongated  form  of  the  Count 
in  Paradise,  kneeling  at  Christ's  feet.  The  whole  of 
the  upper  portion  is  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  quiet 
beauty  of  the  lower.  This  pi(5lure  brought  El  Greco 
fame  and  fortune.  Convents  and  churches  vied  with 
each  other  in  securing  work  from  him,  and  left 
him  free  to  invent  as  he  liked  the  great  mystic 
scenes  in  which  he  delighted. 

El  Greco  painted  portraits  too.  You  will  see 
many  of  them  in  the  Royal  Gallery  at  Madrid.  One 
beautiful  pi(fture  by  him  in  a  private  colle(51:ion  in 
England  represents,  we  believe,  his  daughter.  It  is 
the  pidlure  of  a  young  woman  with  full,  round, 
dark  eyes,  and  thick  dark  hair,  combed  away  from 
her  forehead,  and  tied  round  with  a  lace-edged 
scarf'  She  wears  a  cloak  with  a  wide  fur  collar,  and 

175 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

the  whole  strikes  you  as  full  of  vitality  and  a  kind 
of  modernness.  She  seems  nearer  our  own  day 
than  many  women  whose  portraits  were  painted  far 
later.  You  will  see,  in  the  National  Gallery,  Car- 
dinal Caspar  de  Quiroga,  the  patron  who  gave 
El  Greco  the  commission  for  the  Santo  Tome  altar- 
piece,  and  you  must  notice  the  immense  length  of 
his  face,  exaggerated  still  more  by  the  floating  beard 
and  the  length  of  his  fingers,  as  he  holds  his  book 
open  on  the  table  before  him.  Another  portrait, 
that  of  the  Grand  Inquisitor,  Don  Fernando  de 
Guevara,  is  in  the  Havemeyer  Collection  in  New 
York.  He  sits  richly  robed  and  inscrutable  ;  large, 
round,  black-rimmed  spe6lacles  increasing  the  grim- 
ness  of  his  aspedl.  In  El  Greco's  life,  so  little  of 
which  is  known  to  us,  these  men  and  women  whom 
he  painted  appear  to  us  as  his  friends,  and  help  us 
to  reconstrudt:  his  story,  for  many  famous  people  sat 
to  him — cardinals  and  poets,  doctors  and  lawyers, 
women  with  romantic  faces,  monks  and  noblemen. 
In  his  colouring  El  Greco  loved,  before  all  things, 
every  gradation  of  white  and  black,  and  in  his  work 
we  see  reappearing  the  old  ideals  of  the  forgotten 
Byzantine  artists — the  slender  figures  of  their  people, 
their  willowy  movements,  and  the  long  oval  of  their 
faces.  But  El  Greco  was  not  only  a  painter,  he  was 
also  a  sculptor,  an  architect,  and  a  poet.  We  imagine 
him,  indeed,  a  man  full  of  nervous  energy,  silent, 
dignified,  deeply  religious,  and  regarding  his  art  as  an 

176 


EL  GRECO 

outlet  for  that  mystical  life  which  beat  so  strongly 
within  him.  We  are  told  how  a  painter-critic, 
Pacheco  by  name,  came  from  Seville  to  visit  him  one 
day.  The  talk  fell  naturally  upon  art,  and  El  Greco 
horritied  his  visitor  by  saying  that  "  Michelangelo 
was  a  great  man,  but  he  did  not  know  how  to 
paint."  It  shows  El  Greco's  independence  of  character 
that  he  should  have  dared  to  express  such  a  criticism, 
and  it  was  probably  his  way  of  saying  that,  great 
though  the  Florentine  master  was,  he  is  known  to 
fame  by  his  drawing  and  by  his  masterly  designs 
rather  than  by  his  colouring. 

But  in  all  things  El  Greco  was  independent. 
When  he  sold  a  picture  he  reserved  for  himself  the 
right  to  buy  it  back,  should  he  wish.  He  brought 
with  him  from  his  distant  home  ideas  strange  to  the 
men  of  Toledo.  He  had  built  for  himself  a  charming 
house  in  the  country,  quite  in  the  Cretan  fashion,  as 
we  are  told.  He  loved  music,  and  was  reproached  for 
his  extravagance,  because  he  kept  in  his  house  hired 
musicians  who  played  to  him  as  he  sat  at  his  meals. 
He  lived  in  all  ways  the  life  of  a  cultured  man  of  his 
day,  delighting  in  conversation  and  discussion  with 
his  learned  friends,  visiting  them  and  sitting  with 
them  in  their  gardens.  He  lived  all  the  later  years  of 
his  life  at  Toledo,  and  died  there,  over  sixty  years 
of  age,  leaving,  we  are  told,  "for  his  whole  wealth 
two  hundred  sketches  for  pictures  only."  It  has  been 
thought  that  these  "sketches"  were  really  tinished 

177  N 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

pictures  in  his  latest  manner  ;  for,  as  he  grew  older, 
his  eccentricities  in  painting  seem  to  have  increased 
upon  him,  and  to  those  who  carelessly  ransacked 
his  treasures  after  his  death,  the  pictures  that  he 
had  conceived  at  the  last  may  well  have  appeared 
only  wild  designs  for  pictures  never  carried  out. 
But  this  we  can  never  know  for  certain. 

El  Greco  must  always  remain  to  us  an  enigmati- 
cal person ;  but,  as  a  great  mystical  painter,  whose 
pi6tures  fill  us  constantly  with  admiration  and  a 
kind  of  awe,  his  name  can  never  be  forgotten  where 
mention  is  made  of  the  art  of  Spain. 

It  is  exa6tly  three  centuries  ago  since  El  Greco 
died  on  April  7,  16 14,  and  for  this  anniversary  a 
solemn  festival  was  held  in  the  Cathedral  at  Toledo. 
The  dead  man's  palette  lay  on  his  tomb,  and  his 
name  was  praised  by  messengers  from  the  Pope 
himself. 

El  Greco's  house,  the  very  house,  they  say,  which 
he  built  and  in  which  he  worked  and  painted  those 
curiously  modern  pictures  of  his,  has  been  dedicated 
to  his  memory,  and  from  its  walled  garden  can  be 
seen,  unchanged,  the  view  his  eyes  must  often  have 
rested  upon  over  the  Tagus  and  the  red-brown 
hills,  where  grey-green  olive-trees  grow  in  groups 
under  the  deep  blue  sky  of  Castile. 


178 


CHAPTER  II 

Velasquez  (i 599-1 660). 

Velasqjjez,  the  greatest  painter  of  Spain,  was  born 
of  gentle  parentage,  in  the  proud  merchant  city  of 
Seville,  and  was  taught  the  beginnings  of  his  art  in 
his  native  town.  One  of  his  early  masters  was  that 
same  Pacheco  who  had  visited  El  Greco  at  Toledo, 
and  Pacheco  believed  in  the  young  artist's  gifts,  and 
in  time  gave  him  his  daughter  Juana  in  marriage. 
At  his  father-in-law's  house,  Velasquez  met  good 
company  of  every  kind,  but  his  growing  ambition 
needed  a  further  outlet,  and  he  finally  travelled 
with  Pacheco  to  Madrid,  where  he  was  kindly  re- 
ceived by  that  patron  of  all  the  arts,  Philip  IV. 
This  success  had,  however,  been  earned  by  years  of 
serious  work  ;  Velasquez  the  artist  did  not  spring 
as  by  a  miracle  to  sudden  fame.  He  had  worked 
for  long  in  Pacheco's  studio,  and  we  have  a  record 
of  his  ceaseless  industry  while  there  in  a  book 
written  by  his  father-in-law  himself.  He  worked 
much  from  the  living  model,  making  his  servant- 
lad  pose  when  others  failed.  He  would  draw  the 
same  figure  over  and  over  again,  till  he  had  acquired 
ease  and  dexterity  in  seizing  all  the  expressions  of 

179^ 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

the  human  face.  He  then  practised  painting  what 
is  called  "  still  life,"  placing  together  pots  and  pans, 
pitchers  and  drinking-cups,  so  grouped  that  the 
light  on  the  copper,  or  the  glaze  of  the  earthen- 
ware, became  so  many  problems  to  be  conquered 
by  his  brush.  Of  these  studies  many  pictures  still 
remain  to  bear  witness  to  his  skill ;  amongst  them 
is  our  illustration,  "  The  Woman  making  an  Ome- 
lette." You  see  the  wrinkled  peasant  woman,  her 
white  kerchief  thrown  over  her  head,  cooking  her 
eggs  in 'a  pan  over  a  brazier,  just  as  you  may  see 
them  cooked  in  any  Spanish  town  to  this  day,  for 
kitchen-fires  or  stoves  are  unknown.  A  dark-faced 
boy  stands  opposite,  a  melon  under  his  arm.  There 
is  no  story ;  everything  has  been  chosen  for  its 
value  in  the  composition,  and  the  result  is  a  picture, 
accurate,  as  though  drawn  by  a  Dutch  master.  The 
original  is  in  a  private  colleftion  in  England,  and 
you  may  perhaps  see  it  some  day  in  a  Loan  Exhi- 
bition and  enjoy  its  fine  qualities. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  has  another  pi(5lure  of 
this  period,  "The  Water  Seller,"  painted  from  one 
of  the  sun-burnt  fellows  who,  in  the  hot  summer 
months,  sell  water  through  the  thirsty  streets  of 
Seville.  This  pi6ture  was  among  those  taken  by 
Velasquez  to  Madrid  and  sold  by  him  to  Philip. 
Joseph  Bonaparte  carried  it  away  with  him  in  his 
retreat,  but  it  fell  into  the  great  Duke's  hands  after 
the  Battle  ofVittoria.   Another  pid:ure,  also  painted 

1 80 


ii 


% 


UNIVERSITY 

Of  ^' 


VELASQUEZ 

in  Seville,  is  our  "  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds,"  in 
the  National  Gallery.  The  Holy  Family  is  here 
painted  as  a  group  of  real  peasants,  life-like  and 
simple;  a  black-haired  child  is  holding  his  offering, 
a  dead  bird,  drawn  out  of  his  market-basket,  to  the 
Holy  Child  in  His  swaddling  bands,  and  under  the 
stable-roof  a  tiny  Angel  hangs,  a  point  of  light  like 
the  Epiphany  star. 

In  1 62 1  Philip  IV.  had  come  to  the  throne,  and  two 
years  later  Velasquez  began  his  new  life  in  Madrid. 
It  was  just  about  this  time  that  Prince  Charles,  after- 
wards Charles  I.,  had  come  to  Spain,  courting  the 
hand  of  the  King's  sister.  The  English  Prince  sat  to 
Velasquez  for  his  portrait,  but  the  pidiure  is  thought 
to  have  been  lost,  and  with  it  our  chance  of  seeing 
how  the  great  Spaniard  would  have  presented  the 
melancholy  Stuart  countenance  we  know  so  well 
from  Van  Dyck.  There  is,  however,  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Princess  Royal  of  England  an  early  por- 
trait of  Prince  Charles,  which  has  always  been 
called  a  Velasquez,  and  it  is  possible  that  this  is  the 
missing  pi(5ture.  It  has  the  well-known  Stuart  look, 
but  the  lips  are  fuller,  and  it  is  the  face  of  a  Charles 
still  untouched  by  the  perplexities  of  his  later  life. 

The  part  that  Van  Dyck  played  for  us  in  Eng- 
land, painting  for  us  a  Charles  I.  to  be  for  all 
time  known  and  realized,  Velasquez  played  in 
Spain,  painting  again  and  again  his  royal  master, 
Philip  IV.,  whose  handsome  person,  stately  presence, 

181 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

and  pale,  haughty  face  are  possibly  only  the  painter's 
interpretation  of  a  rather  sickly-looking  gentleman 
with  limp,  blonde  hair  and  slow  though  generous 
emotions.  Here  in  England  you  may  see  Velasquez's 
Philip  in  the  Dulwich  Gallery  ;  it  is  the  King  at 
the  age  of  thirty-nine  in  the  red,  white,  and  silver 
dress  of  a  Commander-in-Chief;  a  masterpiece, 
both  as  regards  colour  and  design.  In  the  National 
Gallery  we  have  two  portraits  of  him,  one  the  head 
and  shoulders  only,  magnificently  vivid  as  a  bust 
against  the  gloom  of  the  background,  round  his 
neck  the  Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece  ;  the  other,  a 
full-length  study  in  black  and  silver,  the  left  hand 
on  the  rapier-hilt. 

A  famous  portrait  of  Philip  on  horseback  is  in 
Madrid  ;  he  is  riding  gallantly  a  bay  charger  ;  he 
wears  a  plumed  hat,  gold-embroidered  breeches,  and 
a  crimson  scarf  tied  across  his  cuirass  of  burnished 
steel,  the  ends  fluttering  in  the  breeze  ;  in  the 
background  are  the  mountains  of  Castile.  You  may 
see  a  good  copy  of  this  pi(5ture  in  Hertford  House, 
where  is  also  an  original  portrait  of  great  interest, 
because  it  is  one  of  the  very  few  painted  by  Velas- 
quez of  an  ordinary,  everyday  person  ;  it  is  called 
"A  Lady  of  the  Middle  Classes."  You  will  find  her 
extraordinarily  attrartive,  this  quiet  lady  in  her  black 
dress  with  her  fan  and  rosary,  looking  at  you  so 
gently  with  her  full,  dark  eyes,  and  you  will  won- 
der,  as   many  have   done,   who  the  lady   was,  and 

182 


VELASQUEZ 

how  the  great  Court  painter  came  to  paint  her 
portrait. 

In  1628  Rubens  came  to  Madrid  as  the  bearer, 
you  will  remember,  of  letters  from  Isabella,  Gover- 
ness of  the  Netherlands,  to  the  Court  of  Spain.  The 
two  painters  became  friends,  Velasquez  being  then 
twenty-nine,  and  Rubens  fifty-one,  years  of  age,  and 
it  was  by  the  older  man's  advice  that  Velasquez 
sought  leave  from  his  master  to  visit  Italy.  While 
there,  we  are  told,  he  studied  with  immense  admir- 
ation the  works  of  Michelangelo,  of  Titian,  and 
of  Paolo  Veronese.  He  delighted  in  the  natural 
beauties  of  Rome,  where  he  spent  two  months  at 
the  Villa  Medici,  and  you  may  still  see  in  Madrid 
two  sketches  that  he  made  there  of  its  gardens,  in 
all  their  splendour  of  tall  cypresses  and  colonnades, 
marble  statues  and  springing  fountains.  In  the 
National  Gallery  there  is  a  picture  which  was 
apparently  painted  under  the  influence  of  this 
Italian  visit.  It  is  the  "  Christ  at  the  Column," 
a  very  dramatic  and  simple  representation  of  this 
terrible  scene,  the  horror  of  which  is  softened  by 
the  tall  Angel,  who  bends  to  teach  a  small  white- 
robed  child  to  kneel  in  prayer  before  the  Christ  in 
agony. 

On  his  return  to  Madrid  Velasquez  lived  for  nine- 
teen years  continuously  at  Philip's  Court,  travelling 
with  him  when  he  went  into  the  country,  and  even 
accompanying  him  when  he  went  on  a  campaign. 

183 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

The  pi(flures  which  he  painted  during  this  period 
fall  into  three  groups.  First,  he  painted  hunting- 
scenes,  with  landscape  as  the  background.  We  have 
an  excellent  example  of  one  of  these  scenes  in  the 
"  Philip  IV.  of  Spain  hunting  the  Wild  Boar"  of  the 
National  Gallery.  The  sport  is  carried  on  in  an  en- 
closed amphitheatre,  surrounded  by  a  grassy  valley. 
The  spectators  are  grouped  outside  the  barrier,  but 
Queen  Isabella  and  her  ladies  are  within,  seated  in 
their  coaches  for  greater  privacy.  The  King,  on 
horseback,  is  attended  by  his  gentlemen.  He  was,  we 
are  told,  an  ardent  huntsman,  and  the  best  rider  in 
Spain.  Behind  rise  wooded  heights,  shutting  in  the 
valley,  and  over  all  float  snowy  clouds  in  a  calm  sky. 

Under  this  heading  we  may  include  the  delight- 
ful sketches  called  "  Conversations,"  one  of  which 
is  in  the  Louvre  ;  a  meeting  of  well-dressed  men, 
who  stand  in  groups,  chatting  with  animation. 
Another  is  in  a  private  collection  in  England.  Under 
a  high  archway  four  small  figures  are  seen,  who 
stand  in  easy,  conversational  attitudes,  one  with  a 
red  cloak  thrown  over  his  shoulder.  You  may  see 
the  same  people  among  the  spectators  at  the  "  Boar 
Hunt." 

Secondly,  Velasquez  painted  pi(5tures  to  illustrate 
historical  subjcCls.  Of  these  the  best  example 
is  the  "Surrender  of  Breda,"  in  Madrid.  It  was 
painted  as  a  decorative  panel  for  Philip's  new  palace 
of  Buen  Retiro,  in  order  to  commemorate  the  cap- 

184 


VELASQUEZ 

ture  of  Breda  in  1625,  the  crowning  achievement 
of  the  war  between  Spain  and  the  Netherlands. 
The  Spaniards  had  besieged  the  town  of  Breda,  near 
Antwerp,  for  a  whole  year.  It  had  at  last  sur- 
rendered to  the  Genoese  General,  Spinola,  who  led 
the  Spanish  troops,  and  who  had  given  honourable 
terms  to  the  gallant  enemy.  In  this  fine  picture  you 
see  the  Governor  of  Breda  delivering  up  the  key  of 
the  fortress  to  his  conqueror,  who,  bareheaded,  lays 
his  hand  protedtingly  on  his  opponent's  shoulder. 
It  is  war  at  its  courtliest.  The  Spanish  lances  cut 
across  the  horizon  ;  in  the  background  the  enemy's 
flag  is  seen,  as  the  vanquished  army  retreats  over  the 
wide  plain  of  the  Netherlands. 

Thirdly,  Velasquez  painted  many  portraits  of  the 
Royal  Family,  besides  those  I  have  already  men- 
tioned of  the  King  himself.  One  of  the  most  famous 
is  the  little  Prince  Don  Balthazar  on  horseback. 
The  boy  was  a  bold  rider,  and  delighted  his  father 
by  his  prowess.  In  the  picture  the  child  sits  his 
stout,  galloping  pony  like  a  hero,  brave  in  his  green 
doublet  and  fluttering  scarf.  The  landscape  behind 
is  exquisite,  bathed  in  light :  a  fairy  glimpse  of  far- 
ofF  woods  and  mountains.  Another  pi61:ure  of  the 
same  boy-Prince  is  in  Hertford  House.  He  is  riding 
proudly  outside  the  riding-school,  where  he  is  to 
have  a  lesson,  lance  in  hand.  This  riding-school  still 
stands  in  Madrid,  and  is  now  called  the  Royal 
Armoury.   The  portrait  of  the   Admiral  Pulido  da 

185 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

Preja  in  the  National  Gallery  may  come  under  this 
heading,  although  he  was  a  royal  servant  only,  and 
not  of  royal  blood.  The  story  is  told  of  this  life-like 
picture,  that  Philip,  coming  one  day  into  the  studio, 
mistook  the  portrait  for  the  hardy,  vigorous  sailor 
himself,  and  upbraided  his  Admiral  for  not  being 
with  his  fleet  in  the  Indies. 

In  the  National  Gallery,  and  belonging  to  none 
of  these  classes,  is  the  recently  purchased  "  Venus 
and  the  Mirror,"  the  only  nude  figure,  as  far  as  we 
know,  that  Velasquez  ever  painted.  The  Catholic 
Church  forbade  such  pictures,  and  it  was  only  by 
the  King's  special  intervention  that  permission  was 
given  for  this  one  to  be  painted.  The  goddess  lies  at 
full  length  on  her  couch,  with  its  black  draperies. 
Her  little  dove-winged  Cupid  holds  a  mirror  for 
her,  into  which  she  gazes,  the  lovely  lines  of  her 
back  turned  to  the  spectators.  This  device  of  the 
mirror-refleftion  was  much  used  by  Velasquez.  It 
is  called  the  "  Rokeby  Venus,"  because  it  was  for 
many  years  in  the  possession  of  the  owner  of 
Rokeby  Hall,  Yorkshire. 

In  1649  Velasquez  went  for  a  second  time  to 
Italy  with  a  commission  to  buy  pictures  by  "  Titian, 
Veronese,  Raphael,  and  the  like,"  for  the  Royal 
Gallery  in  Madrid  ;  but,  arrived  in  Rome,  he  con- 
fessed that  "  Raphael's  art  pleased  him  not  at  all." 
He  enjoyed  the  society  of  many  living  artists, 
among  others  Nicolas  Poussin,  the  Frenchman,  who 

186 


VELASQUEZ 

lived  almost  all  his  life  in  Italy,  and  painted  many 
pictures  of  scholarly  beauty.  The  Pope  Innocent  X. 
himself  commissioned  Velasquez  to  paint  his  por- 
trait, but  the  painter,  fearing  that  his  hand  had 
lost  its  cunning  during  his  journeyings,  first  painted 
a  pi6ture  of  his  own  Moorish  servant,  which  he 
exhibited  in  Rome  to  the  delight  of  all  beholders. 

The  portrait  of  the  Pope  shows  us  a  strongly 
featured,  vigorous  man  of  about  seventy-four.  You 
will  remember  how  highly  Raphael's  pictures  of 
Julius  II.  and  Leo  X.  were  praised;  Velasquez's 
Innocent  X.  surpasses  even  the  other  two  for  the 
marvellous  skill  of  its  painting.  We  are  told  that  the 
Pope  was  so  well  pleased  with  it  that  he  paid  the 
price  with  his  own  hand,  an  unprecedented  honour. 

On  his  return  to  Madrid,  the  post  of  Palace 
Marshal  was  added  to  that  he  had  so  long  held  of 
Court  painter  by  his  master,  Philip.  This  new 
office  necessitated  much  work,  for  it  was  one  of 
heavy  responsibilities,  including  the  supervision  ot 
all  the  internal  arrangements  of  the  various  palaces. 
But  in  spite  of  this,  Velasquez,  during  the  next  nine 
years,  the  last  of  his  life,  painted  some  of  his  greatest 
masterpieces. 

I  will  mention  some  of  them  only  :  first  there  is 
the  pi(flure  called  "  The  Maids  of  Honour,"  in 
reality,  a  portrait  of  the  little  Infanta,  who,  being 
probably  a  bad  sitter,  has  been  caught  by  the  painter 
reflefted  in  a  large  mirror;   for  in  the  pi(5ture  we 

187 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

see  not  only  the  baby-Princess  in  her  spreading 
hoop  with  her  bending  maids  of  honour,  her  dwarf 
and  her  big  dog,  but  the  artist  himself,  working  at 
his  canvas  in  his  grave,  lofty  room,  and  the  King 
and  Queen,  whose  entrance  is  only  shadowed  in  a 
mirror  at  the  other  end  of  the  studio.  Thus,  the 
problem  that  Velasquez  set  himself  to  solve  in  this 
pi6ture  is  no  easy  one,  but  the  result  is  as  perfect, 
in  its  way,  as  an  "Adoration  of  the  Magi"  by  an 
early  Italian  master,  all  centring  round  the  figure 
of  the  little  Princess,  superb  in  her  baby  dignity. 

Next,  in  the  "  Tapestry  Weavers,"  we  have  an 
interior  of  great  beauty,  painted  simply  for  the 
decoration  of  the  palace  walls,  and  showing  the 
women  at  their  work  ;  one,  a  heroic  figure,  is  wind- 
ing her  wool ;  another,  her  head  wrapped  up  in  a 
kerchief,  is  spinning,  and  a  third  holds  back  the 
folds  of  the  heavy  curtain.  The  pi(5lure  differs 
entirely  from  the  Dutch  interiors  of  which  you 
have  been  told,  where  the  painter  takes  you,  as  it 
were,  into  the  very  room,  and  shows  his  sitters 
engaged  at  their  ordinary  occupations.  These 
women,  their  room  itself,  have  all  been  arranged  by 
Velasquez  to  produce  a  great  efFe6l  of  concentrated 
light  and  shade,  and  we  do  not  ask,  for  example,  to 
what  purpose  the  ladder  is  being  put,  as  it  leans 
against  the  wall ;  we  only  see  how  perfedfly  it  cuts 
across  the  background,  and  adds  to  the  beauty  of  its 
line.  The  picture  is,  in  fa6t,  a  fine  decorative  work 

i88 


I 


VELASQUEZ 

of  art  of  enormous  interest,  and  different  from  any 
we  have  so  far  considered. 

"The  Coronation  of  the  Virgin"  was  probably 
painted  for  the  Queen's  Oratory.  The  Virgin  is 
seated  majestically  on  her  throne-like  cloud,  nobly 
draped ;  above  hovers  the  Third  Person  of  the 
Trinity  in  the  form  of  a  dove ;  over  her  head 
the  Crown  is  held  by  the  two  first  Persons,  God 
the  Father  and  God  the  Son ;  beneath  are  Cheru- 
bim, lovely,  winged  children.  The  whole  is  full  of 
dignity,  but  with  its  vivid  blues  and  pinks  and  its 
conventional  composition  it  is  not  typical  of  the 
genius  of  Velasquez. 

The  last  portraits  he  ever  painted  were  the  little 
Infanta  Margarita  and  her  baby-brother  Don  Pros- 
per, presents  for  their  grandfather,  the  Emperor,  at 
Vienna.  This  was  the  same  little  Infanta  of  the 
"  Maids  of  Honour  "  picture,  and  another  portrait 
of  her  is  in  the  Louvre.  Our  illustration  is  taken 
from  that  in  Vienna,  and  shows  her  a  real  little 
great  lady  with  her  fan  and  her  jewels,  standing 
royally  ere6l,  her  small  hand  just  resting  on  the  low 
table  beside  her.  There  is  an  odd,  charmino;  con- 
trast  between  her  plump  baby-face  and  the  stiff 
black  and  white  of  her  hill  Court  dress,  and  from 
the  whole  composition  Velasquez  has  woven  a 
beautiful  tissue  of  silver  and  ash-grey  colour,  just 
embroidered  with  pale  rose. 

As  Palace  Marshal  he  had  a  great  piece  of  work 

189 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

to  do  when,  in  1660,  Louis  XIV.  came  to  the 
Spanish  frontier  to  claim  his  bride,  the  Infanta  of 
Spain.  Twenty-four  hahing-places  had  to  be  ar- 
ranged for  the  royal  travelling-party,  and  all  the 
details  of  the  reception  of  the  bridegroom  had  to 
pass  through  the  painter's  hands.  We  are  told  how 
magnificently  Velasquez  played  his  part,  busy  every- 
where in  his  silver-braided  suit ;  but  the  exertion 
proved  too  much  for  him ;  he  fell  ill  of  an  ague, 
and,  already  weakened  by  the  fatigue  and  anxiety 
of  the  journey,  he  died  just  two  months  after  the 
celebration  of  the  marriage. 

Velasquez  was  from  the  first  a  favourite  of  for- 
tune. The  country  of  his  birth  is  a  land  of  dry, 
stony  foregrounds,  vast,  rolling  plains,  broad  blue 
distances,  and  torn  masses  of  clouds  crossing  the 
sky  above  the  jagged  mountain-tops.  Nothing  more 
harmonious  can  be  imagined  as  a  setting  for  his 
grand,  solitary  figures  on  horseback  or  on  foot. 
To  this  natural  advantage  was  added  the  happy  cir- 
cumstance of  his  early  removal  to  Madrid.  If  he 
had  remained  painting  in  Seville,  he,  the  most 
original  and  independent  of  men,  would  have  found 
himself  hampered  and  restrained  on  all  sides  by  the 
dominance  of  the  priests  and  by  the  hard  and  fast 
rules  of  an  etiquette-loving  people.  But  before  he 
was  twenty-four  he  was  brought  in  contact  with 
the  young  King  of  eighteen,  and  the  ardent  friend- 
ship   between    the   two    lasted   with    undiminished 

190 


TIIK    IMANTA    >t  \R<  ;KKIT.«. 
h'mnt  tlir  /tainting  by  I V. ./ 


I^NIVERSITY 

c       °^ 


VELASQUEZ 

force  for  thirty-six  years,  and  was  only  closed  by 
W'lasquez's  death. 

Under  Philip's  powerful  friendship,  all  doors 
were  open  to  the  artist :  he  could  study  pictures  by 
the  Italian  masters  in  the  royal  galleries;  he  was 
able  to  visit  Rome  and  Venice  as  a  person  of  im- 
portance ;  daily  in  Madrid  the  King  visited  him  in 
his  studio,  passing  along  secret  galleries  of  the  old 
Palace,  hung  with  pidlures. 

As  I  have  told  you,  Velasquez  painted  his  master 
again  and  again,  through  all  the  developments  of 
his  art ;  and,  just  as  Rembrandt  painted  himself  from 
youth  to  age,  so  did  the  Spaniard  study  his  one  con- 
stant model,  keeping  his  vision  always  fresh,  never 
allowing  himself  to  become  the  slave  of  tradition, 
nor  letting  his  senses  grow  dulled  by  repetition. 

Velasquez  never  forgot  that  a  pidlure  must  be  a 
dignified  piece  of  decoration.  But  he  did  not,  like 
the  old  masters,  compose  his  pi(^tures  as  patterns, 
planned  to  cover  a  certain  space.  He  conceived  his 
designs  in  colour,  leaving  behind  hardly  any  draw- 
ings of  any  kind  ;  then,  having  realized  his  figures, 
he  set  about  giving  them  the  backgrounds  they 
needed,  often  adding  to  or  altering  his  canvases 
until  they  gained  the  shape  he  required. 

Space  is  one  of  his  most  valued  means  of  expres- 
sion in  painting.  More  than  half  the  pi(;:ture  in  the 
''  Maids  of  Honour  "  is  filled  with  the  dim  empti- 
ness of  the  lofty  room  in  which  he  is  seen  working 

191 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

at  his  truly  gigantic  canvas.  Yet  the  idea  of  pro- 
portion is  perfectly  observed,  and  satisfies  our  eyes. 
The  sense  of  space  given,  and  of  figures  seen  in  due 
relation  the  one  to  the  other,  is  perhaps  the  reason 
why  his  pictures  never  arouse  painful  excitement, 
and  are  able  to  hold  us  to  the  end  attentive  to  their 
charm.  For  Velasquez's  art,  always  interesting,  is 
never  extravagant:  a  naturalness  and  a  kind  of  sober 
dignity  are  their  chief  chara(5teristics.  His  colour  is 
sober  too,  severe  and  stately  ;  black  is  used  by  him 
in  a  marvellously  varied  way  ;  the  whole  colour- 
scheme  as  a  rule  gives  the  effe6t  of  cool,  silvery 
light.  He  sees  so  profoundly  that,  in  appearance, 
he  can  afford  to  be  restrained. 

In  considering  the  work  of  painters  up  till  now, 
you  have  seen  how  they,  for  the  most  part,  derived 
from  the  traditions  of  those  who  came  before  them, 
handing  on  the  torch  of  acquired  knowledge  to 
those  who  followed.  This  is  not  the  case  with 
Velasquez.  All  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  him  is  his 
alone  ;  nor  can  it  be  said,  though  countless  artists 
have  studied  his  secrets,  that  any  man  after  him  has 
ever  been  inspired  by  the  same  genius.  Each  fresh 
pi6lure  that  he  painted  was  for  him  the  occasion  of 
a  fresh  effort,  and  he  never  avoided  repeating  the 
same  subject,  because  his  fertile  brain  at  once  en- 
riched it  with  some  new  impression.  In  the  light  of 
his  fine  imaginative  vision,  nothing  that  he  saw  was 
mean  or  commonplace,  and  in  his  pictures  Velasquez 
has  dignified  for  ever  the  whole  art  of  painting. 

192 


CHAPTER  111 

MURILLO     (1617-1682). 

MuRiLLo    was    born    eighteen    years    later    than 
Velasquez,  and,  like  the  greater  master,  at  Seville. 
His  parents  were  humble  folk,  and  he  began  paint- 
ing for  his  living  at  a  very  early  age.   There  was  at 
that  time  a  great  market  for  sacred  pidlures  to  be 
shipped  off  to  the  Spanish  colonies  in  Mexico  and 
Peru,  and  such  pictures,  often   quite  roughly  exe- 
cuted, are  still  to  be  found  on  the  walls  of  their  old 
convents  and  churches.    When  Murillo  had  in  this 
way  got  together  a  little  sum  of  money,  he  set  off 
for  Madrid,  with  the  idea  of  travelling  later  to  study 
painting  in  Rome.    He  sought  out  his  great  fellow- 
townsman,    Velasquez,    and    was   received   by    him 
with    much    kindness.     The   royal    galleries    were 
thrown  open  to   him,  and  he  copied   industriously 
pictures  by  Van   Dyck  and  Velasquez.   We  can  see 
what  a  great  influence  these  studies  had  upon  him 
in  one  of  his  earliest  pidlures,  "The  Good  Samari- 
tan," which    was  painted   with    eleven    others   for 
the   Franciscan   Convent.    In   it   he  paints   with    a 
greater  depth   of  shadow  than  he  ever  afterwards 
used.  This  series  of  pictures  was  not  only  greatly 

193  o 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

admired,  but  it  brought  him  many  commissions, 
and  his  work  improved  so  much  that  Velasquez 
urged  him  to  set  out  for  Rome.  But  Murillo  shrank 
apparently  from  the  perils  of  the  journey,  and  in- 
stead, returned  to  Seville,  married  a  lady  of  fortune, 
and  began  a  prosperous  career,  founding  finally  the 
Academy  of  Painting  in  his  native  town. 

From  the  moment  of  his  return,  Murillo  began 
to  paint  in  the  style  which  we  always  now  associate 
with  his  name  ;  his  pictures  are  easy  to  under- 
stand, smooth  and  flowing  in  line,  with  faces 
painted,  as  a  Spanish  critic  has  said,  "  with  blood 
and  milk,"  so  white  and  red  are  they.  He  was 
deeply  religious,  and  his  pi6tures  represent  his  sin- 
cerest  feelings,  but  to  us  many  of  them  are  spoilt 
by  an  overpowering  sweetness.  The  Murillos  in  the 
National  Gallery  will  show  you  what  I  mean  ;  take, 
for  example,  the  young  John  Baptist,  his  arms 
round  the  Lamb.  Murillo  has  painted  a  pretty 
peasant  lad  and  a  soft  lamb  from  the  flock,  but  the 
meaning  of  his  subjecfl  could  hardly  be  guessed 
without  the  inscription  on  the  standard,  "  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God."  "  The  Holy  Family,"  again, 
painted  in  his  old  age,  shows  how  he  too  often  set 
the  stage  in  his  pictures  and  spoiled  their  undoubted 
charm  by  a  theatrical  over-prettiness  ;  the  Child 
Jesus,  standing,  one  little  hand  in  His  Mother's,  the 
other  in  S.  Joseph's,  is  an  entirely  human  child,  in 
spite  of  His  halo,  and  the  delightful  cherub-angels 

194 


i 


MURILLO 

above  Him  only  add  to  the  gentle  cheerfulness  of 
the  pi(fture.  In  Hertford  House  you  may  see  a 
''  Virgin  and  Child  "  by  Murillo,  the  Virgin  in  a 
very  beautiful  red  robe  ;  in  the  Louvre  is  the  well- 
known  "  Assumption  of  the  Virgin,"  a  large  canvas, 
the  Virgin  standing  ered:  on  a  crescent  moon,  sur- 
rounded by  groups  of  charming  baby-angels,  of  the 
same  type  as  the  cherubs  in  "  The  Holy  Family  "  in 
the  National  Gallery. 

Far  more  interesting  is  a  set  of  six  pictures  illus- 
trating the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  now  in  a 
private  collection  in  London.  Two  of  them  have 
been  exhibited  :  the  Prodigal  Son  living  riotously, 
and  his  penitent  return  home.  In  the  first  he  is 
wasting  his  substance  at  a  feast  on  a  tiled  terrace 
with  a  background  of  columns  and  rich  red  curtains. 
A  musician  plays  a  guitar  ;  an  attendant  brings 
dishes.  Fair  ladies  share  the  meal.  In  the  distance 
is  a  charming  landscape  and  a  gateway  leading  into 
a  park.  In  the  second  the  aged  father  welcomes  his 
son,  who  kneels,  scantily  clad,  at  his  feet  ;  behind, 
the  fatted  calf  of  the  parable  is  being  led  through  a 
gateway.  This  second  pi(fture  belonged  at  one  time 
to  the  Pope,  who  had  received  it  as  a  present  from 
the  Queen  of  Spain.  The  Pope  sold  it  to  an  English- 
man, who  used  to  boast  that  he  was  one  of  the  only 
purchasers  from  the  Vatican  in  modern  times. 

Besides  religious  picftures,  Murillo  painted  many 
studies  of  peasant  boys,  such  as  our  "  Boy  Drinking" 

195 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

in  the  National  Gallery,  and  a  group  of  boys  in  the 
Dulwich  Gallery,  merry  little  fellows,  two  sitting 
on  the  ground  with  their  basket  open  for  a  picnic 
meal.  A  mulatto  boy  holds  out  his  hand  to  beg  a 
morsel  ;  behind  them  is  a  fine  landscape  of  far-off 
hills,  and  in  the  sky  are  white,  rolling  clouds. 

Murillo's  last  work  was  a  "  Marriage  of  S. 
Catherine,"  painted  as  an  altar-piece  for  the  Church 
of  the  Capucin  Fathers  in  Cadiz.  He  had  to  mount 
a  high  scaffolding  in  order  to  finish  the  pi(flure, 
after  it  had  been  put  into  its  place  above  the  altar. 
Unfortunately  he  slipped,  and  gave  himself  an  in- 
ternal injury  from  which  he  never  recovered.  At 
his  death  the  picflure  was  left  unfinished,  and  it 
still  hangs  in  the  Church  of  the  Capucins  ;  but  the 
convent  has  been  turned  into  a  hospital. 

Murillo  was  deeply  mourned  ;  all  the  chief 
nobles  of  Seville  attended  his  funeral,  which  was 
celebrated  with  great  pomp  amidst  a  sorrowing 
crowd  of  people  from  every  rank.  On  his  grave 
they  laid  a  plain  stone  slab,  on  which  his  name  was 
carved  with  a  skeleton  and  the  two  words,  *'  \'^ive 
Moriturus." 


196 


CHAPTER  IV 

Goya    (1746-1828). 

Before  leaving  Spain  I  must  tell  you  about  a 
Spanish  painter  who  belongs  to  a  far  later  date 
tlian  those  you  have  already  learnt  to  know.  This 
was  Goya,  a  man  of  strange,  fiery  passions  and 
widely  differing  moods,  who  has  been  compared 
to  a  meteor  Hashing  suddenly  through  a  dark  sky. 
Goya  was  born  in  Aragon  some  fifty  years  after 
Murillo's  death.  He  began  to  paint  while  still 
very  young,  and  lived  for  many  years  in  Rome, 
working  hard.  When  he  returned  to  Spain  he  made 
Madrid  his  headquarters,  and  at  first  earned  his 
living  by  painting  designs  for  tapestries.  Many  of 
these  designs  may  still  be  seen  at  the  Prado  Gallery. 
He  became  a  member  of  the  Academy  of  San  Fer- 
nando, and  was  made  in  time  Court  painter  to  the 
King.  The  Queen,  Maria  Louisa,  a  Bourbon  Prin- 
cess, was  his  friend  as  well  as  his  patron,  and  so, 
too,  was  the  Duchess  of  Alba,  a  celebrated  beauty 
of  the  time,  whose  portrait  by  him  is  in  a  private 
collection  in  England,  it  represents  a  slender  lady 
in  a  full  white  muslin  dress  with  very  black  hair, 
much   frizzed  and   falling   over   her   shoulders.   She 

197 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

has  red  corals  round  her  neck,  and  a  red  sash  round 
her  sHm  waist.  He  has  painted  her  httle  tluffy  dog 
too,  with  a  smart  pink  bow  on  his  hind-leg.  Goya 
used  to  praise  this  pi6lure  highly,  and  the  same 
lady  sat  to  him  on  many  different  occasions.  His 
portrait  of  the  Queen  is  now  in  Madrid — a  coarse- 
looking  woman  in  a  round  beaver  hat,  wearing 
riding-breeches,  and  sitting  astride  her  horse  as 
ladies  ride  nowadays. 

Goya  became  the  favourite  painter  of  the  fashion- 
able world,  and  ninety  portraits  by  him  at  least  are 
known  to  exist  in  private  houses  in  Madrid.  He  was 
able  to  buy  a  beautiful  villa  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  town,  where  he  saw  much  company.  He 
painted  pictures,  too,  for  various  churches  and  con- 
vents, but  it  is  not  in  such  works  that  the  peculiar 
genius  of  his  art  is  best  shown.  Indeed,  the  Church, 
of  whose  influence  on  Spanish  art  I  have  told  you, 
inspired  Goya  on  the  whole  with  mockery,  and  he 
even  parodied  the  doings  of  the  Inquisition,  and 
caricatured  monks  and  nuns  with  a  merciless  wit. 
He  was  an  engraver  too,  and  has  left  a  whole  series 
of  "caprichos,"  as  he  called  them:  fanciful  pi6fures, 
in  which  he  satirized  passionately  avarice  and  greed, 
the  horrors  of  war,  the  cruelties  of  the  Inquisitors, 
the  malpractices  of  lawyers,  doctors,  and  priests. 
He  lived,  as  you  see  by  his  dates,  all  through  the 
troublous  times  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  he 
made   a   whole   series   of  sketches   illustrating   the 

198 


GOYA 

French  invasion  of  Spain  and  its  accompanying 
terrors.  All  that  he  saw  during  the  war  only  served 
to  increase  his  bitter  hatred  of  tyranny  and  oppres- 
sion. After  the  Battle  of  Salamanca,  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  being  for  a  while  in  Madrid,  sat  for 
his  portrait  to  Goya,  who  has  given  us  the  most 
living  picture  we  possess  of  the  great  general. 

In  the  National  Gallery  we  have  a  fine  portrait 
by  Goya  of  Dr.  Peral,  who  sits  in  a  straight-backed 
wooden  chair,  looking  sombrely  at  the  spectator 
with  thin,  slightly  parted  lips.  He  wears  a  grey 
satin  coat  and  a  waistcoat,  flowered  and  faintly 
striped.  The  face  is  a  haunting  one,  full  of  suffering, 
but  strong  too,  self-controlled,  and  proudly  intel- 
ledKial.  Another  masterly  portrait  is  in  a  private 
colle(!:l:ion  in  France.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  Revo- 
lution is  in  the  proud,  reckless  face  of  this  Don 
Ramon  Satue.  It  is  dated  1823,  so  it  must  have 
been  painted  when  Goya  was  seventy-five,  just  before 
he  left  Spain  to  live  the  last  few  years  of  his  life  in 
France.  He  settled  in  Bordeaux,  and  busied  himself 
in  making  a  lithograph  series  of  "The  Bulls  ot  Bor- 
deaux," showing  his  genius  still  fresh  and  vigorous. 
He  died  in  Bordeaux,  and  more  than  seventy  years 
later  his  countrymen  brought  his  remains  back  to 
Spain,  and  he  was  buried  in  Madrid. 

Our  illustration  is  taken  from  a  pi6ture  in  the 
Prado,  ''The  Game  of  Blind  Man's  Buff."  The 
lady  faciuLT  us  to  the  extreme  left  of  the  picture  is 

199 


THE  SPANISH  PAINTERS 

dressed  in  much  the  same  fashion  as  the  Duchess 
of  Alba.  The  group  is  charmingly  composed,  and 
the  landscape  is  very  pleasing.  The  game  is  played 
by  the  side  of  a  quiet  lake  ;  the  atmosphere  is  full 
of  light,  softly  diffused  under  a  cloudy  sky. 

In  looking  at  Goya's  pictures  we  are  often 
puzzled,  because  he  is  an  unequal  painter,  some- 
times extraordinarily  good,  sometimes  almost  com- 
monplace. He  was  free  and  independent  in  his 
opinions,  refusing  to  be  bound  by  any  conventions. 
He  painted  best  the  people  who  amused  him  most, 
and  therefore  his  portraits  show  more  cleverness 
than  love  of  human  beings.  He  was  like  Hogarth, 
because  he  hated  cruelty  and  stupidity,  and  knew 
how  to  express  this  hatred  honestly  ;  but  he  was 
greater  than  Hogarth  in  the  way  he  set  to  work  to 
expose  this  cruelty.  He  painted  his  people  as  he 
saw  them,  and  that  was  part  of  his  honesty  ;  but 
he  cannot  be  compared  to  such  a  painter  as  Rem- 
brandt, because  he  did  not  care  enough  about  life 
itself  to  paint  tenderly  and  patiently  those  who  had 
suffered  ;  he  was  too  angry  with  those  who  had 
caused  the  sufi^ering,  and  that  often  gives  an  almost 
terrifying  force  to  his  pictures.  You  see  he  really 
was,  as  I  said  before,  a  kind  of  bright  meteor, 
making  himself  known  by  flashes  of  light,  not 
burning  with  steady  radiance  like  a  planet. 


200 


•_    ^ 


PART  VII 
FRENCH  PAINTERS 

CHAPTER  I 

Clouet   (1510-1572). 

The  first  great  national  painter  of  France  is  Clouet. 
Before  his  time  it  is  ditficiiTrto  decide  which  of  the 
still-existing  pictures  are  by  French  and  which  by 
Flemish  artists.  You  remember  first  among  the 
Flemish  artists  the  names  of  Hubert  and  Jan  van 
Eyck,  and  how  they  worked  at  Bruges  and  Ghent, 
and  introduced  new  methods  of  painting,  and  had  a 
following  of  artists  who  spread  this  new  oil-paint- 
ing far  and  w^de.  Their  work  came  to  France,  too, 
the  more  so  since  France,  being  torn  asunder  at  the 
time  by  wars  and  internal  dissensions,  had  no  actual 
school  of  painting  itself.  It  was  only  in  quiet  places 
such  as  convent  libraries  that  artists  could  pursue 
their  labours  undisturbed  ;  hence  France  is  especi- 
ally rich  in  illustrated  manuscripts,  with  tlicir 
treasures    of   delicate    painting,    showing    Flemish 

201 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

influence,  but  painted  surely  in  many  instances  by 
French  hands. 

Up  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  religious 
art  still  held  the  upper  hand  in  France,  but  with 
the  sixteenth  century  the  art  of  portrait-painting 
became  of  the  first  importance.  You  may  remember 
that  about  this  time  Holbein  became  Court  painter 
to  Henry  VHI.,  and  had  to  paint  pictures  of  the 
ladies  whom  the  King  intended  to  honour  with 
offers  of  marriage.  This  was  one  of  the  duties  of 
the  Court  painters  of  the  day.  Schemes  for  marry- 
ing royal  personages  suitably  occupied,  as  history 
tells  us,  the  subtlest  brains  in  Europe  ;  and  as 
journeys  were  both  slow  and  dangerous,  painters 
would  be  dispatched  to  show  intending  brides  and 
bridegrooms  of  royal  descent  each  other's  portraits. 
Thus  an  immense  responsibility  rested  on  their 
shoulders.  Supposing  the  marriage  had  been  success- 
fully concluded,  there  would  be  pi(^tures  of  the 
children  to  be  painted  for  the  far-away  royal  grand- 
parents to  see  and  admire.  You  remember  Velasquez 
painted  the  royal  children  of  Spain  to  be  sent  to 
their  grandfather's  Court  at  Vienna. 

Such  an  artist  was  Fran9ois  Clouet,  whose  father 
Jean  (sometimes  called  Janet)  had  been  in  the 
employ  of  Francois  I.,  and  had  risen  to  the  position 
of  first  Court  painter.  He  was  named  at  the  same 
time  the  King's  "  valet  de  chambre,"  which  shows 
that  the  artist  was  still  considered  in  the  light  ot  a 

202 


CLOUET 

royal  body-servant.  The  office  was  evidently  not 
considered  of  any  great  importance,  for  no  record 
is  given  of  Janet's  death.  His  son  apparently  in- 
herited the  position  without  a  break,  and  by  1540 
was  mentioned  as  being  Court  painter,  with  the 
same  salary  as  his  father.  So  quietly  did  the  two 
Clouets  live  that  their  names  were  in  danger  of 
being  forgotten,  and  up  to  quite  recent  times  their 
work  was  generally  given  to  Holbein.  But  with 
greater  knowledge  ot  the  subject,  the  Clouets  have 
come  into  their  own  again,  and  no  fewer  than  three 
hundred  drawings  by  them  have  been  named  and 
classified,  and  are  to  be  seen  in  that  ancient  treasure- 
house  of  the  Orleans  family  at  Chantilly,  now  the 
summer  residence  of  the  President  of  the  French 
Republic. 

We  know  that  Francois  Clouet  was  born  at 
Tours,  and  also  that  his  father  Jean  must  have  been 
of  foreign  origin,  because  a  document  exists  in 
which  Fran9ois  I.  allows  the  son  to  inherit  the 
property  left  by  his  father  at  death,  although  by  the 
law  of  that  day  a  foreigner's  goods  lapsed  after 
death  to  the  Crown.  This  is  another  example  of 
the  generosity  of  Fran9ois  I.  to  artists,  and,  indeed, 
Clouet  the  younger  was  fortunate  in  his  master,  for 
the  King  was  enthusiastic  in  his  love  ot  art,  critical 
in  his  appreciation,  and  magnificent  in  his  rewards. 
In  1546  Clouet  found  a  colleague  in  his  office  of 
Court   painter   in   Limousin,  who  is  chiefly  known 

203 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

nowadays  by  the  famous  Limoges  enamel,  which 
he  designed,  and  of  which  many  beautiful  examples 
still  exist. 

Clouet's  method  of  painting  portraits  was,  like 
Titian,  to  make  rapid  sketches  of  his  royal  sitters, 
which  he  worked  up  into  finished  pictures  after- 
wards. This  accounts  for  the  large  number  of  draw- 
ings left  by  him  and  his  father.  It  is  probably  the 
reason  why,  as  a  rule,  his  drawings  are  so  far  better 
than  his  oil-paintings.  He  is  perhaps  best  of  all  as 
a  painter  of  miniatures,  and  he  has  left  a  Charles  IX. 
(now  in  Vienna)  and  a  Mary  Stuart  (at  Windsor) 
which  are  perfect  examples  of  his  art. 

Our  illustration  is  from  a  charming  pi6lure  in 
the  Louvre,  the  portrait  of  Elizabeth,  the  Austrian 
Princess  who  became  Queen  of  France  and  the 
wife  of  Charles  IX.,  a  King  of  evil  fame  to  us, 
because  it  was  by  his  commands  that,  on  S.  Bar- 
tholomew's Day,  1574,  all  the  Protestants  in  Paris 
were  treacherously  murdered.  The  picture  shows 
us  the  young  Queen  richly  tricked  out  with  all  the 
artifices  of  her  day — high  ruff,  jewel-embroidered 
dress  covered  with  knots  and  spider-webs,  slashed 
sleeves,  a  net  of  pearls  in  her  hair,  and  clear,  flat 
stones  ornamenting  her  hands  and  bodice.  Her  face 
is  a  characteristic  example  of  Clouet's  type  :  she 
has  the  good  brown  eyes,  the  tender  expression,  the 
faintly  golden  hair,  and  the  pale  complexion  with 
amber  tints  in  it,  that,  in  varying  degrees,  we  see  in 
all  of  his  charming  royal  ladies. 

204 


I'oKlKAII     UK    Kl  l/AKKTII    OK    AISTRIA. 
{.It'trr  thi-  fiicliiri-  b\-  /'r.iii,  iii\  I  /.,/,./  /„  //„    /  ..tn-rr.) 


CHAPTER  II 

French  art  is  bound  up  with  the  history  of  France 
as  a  nation.  When  we  were  learning  about  ItaHan 
art,  it  was  never  of  Italy  as  a  whole  that  we  thought. 
Their  artists  were  the  special  glory  of  the  cities  in 
which  they  worked,  and  their  fame  was  universal. 
French  art  developed  differently  ;  it  reflefted  always 
its  own  national  customs,  and  grew  out  of  its  own 
individual  needs. 

It  was  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.,  France's  "  Roi 
Soleil,"  that  the  flame  of  national  pride  burnt  the 
most  steadily,  and  during  his  long  reign,  from  1643 
to  171  5,  French  art  flourished  and  began  to  adapt 
itself  vigorously  to  the  ideals  of  splendour  and  mag- 
nificence, fostered  by  Louis  and  his  Court.  Religion 
played  little  part  in  this  side  of  French  life,  and  no 
great  artists  devoted  themselves  to  the  production 
of  altar-pieces  or  sacred  pi(5lures  for  the  decoration 
of  their  churches.  But  there  was  a  ceaseless  demand 
for  pictures,  suitable  both  in  size  and  subjed:,  to 
adorn  the  fronts  of  costly  cabinets,  the  tops  of  harp- 
sichords, the  walls,  ceilings,  and  chimneypieces  of 
salons  and  boudoirs.  Beautiful  examples  of  these 
decorative  pictures  still  exist,  and  in  judging  them, 

205 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

you  must  remember  that  such  pidlures  were  never 
meant  to  hang  in  picture-galleries  in  solid  gilded 
frames  :  they  were  planned  to  follow  the  architec- 
tural lines  of  the  rooms  they  adorned,  to  surmount 
doors,  to  fill  in  panels,  to  become  part  of  the  grace- 
ful scheme  of  surrounding  objects,  including  even 
the  gardens.  Such  rooms  standing  in  just  such  sur- 
roundings you  can  still  see  hung  with  pictures  by 
Watteau  in  the  palace  of  Sans  Souci  at  Potsdam, 
near  Berlin. 

When  the  French  Revolution  came,  it  swept 
away  the  old  order  of  things  in  art,  no  less  than  in 
politics.  French  ideals  turned  away  from  royal  pomp 
to  the  austerity  of  the  ancient  democrats  of  Rome, 
as  the  Jacobins  imagined  them  ;  and  since  the  French 
are  the  most  logical  of  people,  they  carried  out  this 
rage  for  simplicity  in  their  clothes,  in  the  furniture 
of  their  houses,  and  of  course  in  their  pictorial  art. 
You  will  see  these  developments  in  the  work  of  the 
different  artists  I  have  chosen  for  you  to  consider. 

Watteau  (i 684-1 721). 

Greatest  of  all  the  painters  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.  is  Watteau,  the  poet  of  eighteenth- 
century  France.  His  genius  came  to  surprise  a 
world  that  had  never  before  seen  such  fairy-like 
pi(5tures,  such  painted  kingdoms  of  love  and  en- 
chantment.  There   is  a   portrait    of  Watteau    as    a 

206 


WATTEAU 

young  man,  gaunt  and  nervous,  with  large  dark 
eyes,  long  thin  nose,  sickly-looking  and  sad  ;  later 
portraits  of  him  tell  the  same  tale:  he  looked  an  old 
man  at  thirty,  his  eyes  were  sunken,  his  face  hol- 
lowed by  ill-health  under  the  heavy  curled  wig  of 
the  period,  which  framed  oddly  his  high  forehead. 
He  was  born  in  the  east  of  France,  at  \'^alenciennes, 
a  town  formerly  Flemish,  which  had  become  French 
only  six  years  before  Watteau's  birth.  His  father 
was  a  tiler,  but  Watteau  determined  early  to  be  a 
painter.  He  left  his  father's  house  and  came  to  Paris, 
very  poor  and  quite  friendless.  He  earned  his  living 
by  copying  pid:ures  for  a  shopkeeper,  who  made 
him  work  hard  for  him  all  day  in  a  miserable  attic. 
Luckily,  this  did  not  last  long.  Watteau  met  an 
artist,  Gillot,  who  loved  to  paint  the  figures  taken 
from  the  Italian  Comedy,  then  so  popular  in  France, 
Pantaloon  and  Harlequin,  those  curious  masks,  in- 
vented at  Bergamo,  who  in  the  eighteenth  century 
became  popular  throughout  all  Europe.  Gillot 
took  the  young  man  into  his  house,  and  taught  him 
to  engrave  illustrations  for  books,  in  which  he 
quickly  made  such  progress  that  he  attracted  the 
notice  of  a  second  master,  Audran,  Keeper  of  the 
Luxembourg  Palace,  a  scene-painter  tor  the  Opera, 
who  had  learnt  his  business  by  studying  the  designs 
made  by  Raphael  for  the  adornment  of  the  walls  of 
the  V^atican.  As  I  have  said,  this  was  a  time  when 
houses  were  treated  as  works  of  art,  and  under  his 

207 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

new  master,  Watteau  learnt  how  to  paint  on  white 
or  gold  backgrounds ;  he  learnt  also  something  of 
far  greater  importance,  for  working  with  Audran, 
he  lived  in  the  Luxembourg,  and  thus  had  free  access 
to  the  masterpieces  of  Rubens,  now  in  the  Louvre, 
which  were  then  housed  in  the  palace  across  the 
Seine.  Watteau  knew  Rubens  already,  for  as  a  boy 
he  would  have  seen  his  paintings  in  the  churches  of 
his  Flemish  home,  but  he  had  never  before  seen  him 
in  all  his  splendour,  and  his  work  thus  intimately 
studied  exercised  the  greatest  influence  over  the 
young  painter.  The  natural  surroundings  of  the 
palace  of  the  Luxembourg  played  their  part  too  in 
his  development,  for  in  those  stately  gardens  under 
those  tall  trees  and  resting  on  those  smooth  lawns, 
he  could  observe  at  his  leisure  the  effe6l  of  the  play 
of  light  and  shade  on  the  waving  branches  and  on 
the  little  groups  of  people  enjoying  the  air  in  shady 
places;  all  things  he  cared  supremely  to  render  in 
colour,  when  he  came  to  paint  what  really  pleased 
him. 

Watteau's  first  pictures  were  painted  definitely  to 
earn  his  daily  bread,  and  they  were  not  garden- 
scenes.  At  his  old  home  in  Valenciennes  he  had 
often  seen  the  French  troops  passing  on  their  way 
to  join  the  army  on  the  frontier,  and  his  first 
pictures  were  two  such  little  scenes  from  the  life  of 
these  marching  regiments,  one  of  soldiers  setting 
out  on  their  march,  the  other  of  soldiers  halting  for 

208 


WATTEAU 

their  midday  rest ;  two  pi6tures  remarkable  for 
their  delicate  observation,  their  harmony,  and  sense 
of  colour.  He  sold  them  both,  and  the  money  for  one 
alone  was  enough  to  pay  for  his  journey  home,  to 
see  his  old  parents  and  to  show  them  his  prosperity. 

On  his  return  to  Paris  he  was  ambitious  to  gain  the 
Prix  de  Rome,  the  prize  founded  by  Louis  XIV., 
providing  money  to  send  poor  artists  to  Rome  to 
study  painting.  Watteau  competed  in  1709,  but  his 
pi(flure  was  placed  second,  and  the  chance  was  lost, 
for  that  year,  at  any  rate.  He  hoped,  however,  to 
gain  the  favour  of  the  Academicians,  his  judges,  for 
another  year,  by  showing  them  more  of  his  work, 
and  he  placed  two  of  his  soldier-scenes  in  their  ante- 
room, where  they  could  not  fail  to  see  them  as  they 
passed.  The  plan  was  successful  in  an  unexpected 
manner.  The  pi(flures  so  delighted  the  Academi- 
cians that  they  then  and  there  ele6led  Watteau 
a  member  of  their  Academy. 

Fortune  began  to  smile  upon  him  in  other  ways ; 
he  found  favour  with  a  new  patron,  who,  in  the 
fashion  of  those  days,  took  him  into  his  own  house 
and  surrounded  him  with  every  luxury.  This  Mon- 
sieur Cruzat  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  taste,  the  pos- 
sessor of  many  treasures  of  art,  especially  ot  drawings 
and  sketches  by  the  old  masters ;  by  Rubens,  for  ex- 
ample,VanDyck  and  Titian.  Studying  them, Watteau 
fostered  his  love  for  beautiful  textures,  fine  architec- 
ture and  leafy  trees.   He  worked  mucli  from  liis  own 

209  p 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

sketch-books,  in  which  he  was  accustomed  to  note 
down  anything  that  pleased  his  eye,  some  chance 
attitude  of  grace  in  a  woman,  as  she  stood  or  sat,  some 
happy  fall  of  her  silken  skirts  as  she  moved.  When 
he  composed  his  pictures,  he  went  to  his  books,  and 
took  from  them  the  figures  that  he  needed. 

His  health  continued  delicate,  he  tired  easily, 
even  of  his  friends ;  he  moved  constantly  from  one 
house  to  another,  disappointed  his  patrons,  and  de- 
layed five  years  before  he  sent  to  the  Academy  the 
pi(5lure  which  should  gain  him  full  membership  in 
that  body.  He  was  given  the  title  of  "  Peintre  du 
Roi,"  and  a  new  title,  made  expressly  for  him, 
"  Peintre  des  Fetes  Galantes,"  yet  his  friends  noticed 
how  little  he  cared  for  his  new  honours.  He  worked 
harder,  but  more  erratically  than  ever,  and  would 
often  paint  out  a  pi(flure  that  had  failed  to  satisfy 
his  ideals,  even  though  offered  a  good  price  for  it. 
In  his  restlessness,  he  made  the  long  journey  to 
London,  to  consult,  as  some  think.  Dr.  Mead,  the 
famous  physician  of  that  day.  English  do6lors  were 
supposed  to  know  more  than  most  about  his  com- 
plaint, consumption,  because  it  was  so  prevalent  in 
that  land  of  fogs.  Some  of  these  details  we  learn 
from  his  friend,  the  pi(5lure-dealer  Gersaint,  for 
whose  shop  Watteau  painted  the  well-known  sign- 
board, a  charming  pidiure  of  an  eighteenth-century 
picfture-shop,  with  the  pictures  hanging  temptingly 
on  the  walls,  and  the  customers  in  their  spreading 

2IO 


WATTEAU 

hoops  examining  them  at  the  counter.  Watteau 
was  living  at  Gersaint's  house  when  his  illness  gained 
such  a  hold  upon  him  that  his  friend  sought  for 
him  a  home  in  the  country,  at  Nogent  near  \'in- 
cennes,  and  there  he  died  after  much  suffering,  aged 
only  thirty-seven.  The  good  cure  of  the  village 
visited  him  in  his  sickness,  and  we  are  told  how 
Watteau,  trained  in  appreciation  of  beauty,  turned 
away  his  head  from  the  rough  crucifix  held  up  to 
him,  and  spent  the  last  days  of  his  life  painting  the 
cure  2.  pidture  of  the  Crucifixion  that  should  be  more 
worthy  of  his  Master. 

The  greatest  of  all  Watteau's  pictures  is  in  the 
Louvre,  the  "  Embarkation  for  Cythera,"  the  very 
pidture  painted  after  such  long  delay  for  his 
Academy  membership.  Here  you  may  see  with 
what  magic  skill  he  paints  a  landscape  all  trans- 
figured with  sunshine,  where  the  joyous  travellers 
in  their  tenderly  coloured  dresses  are  hastening, 
before  the  setting  of  the  sun,  to  embark  in  the 
ship,  whose  sails  are  already  spread,  gallantly,  for 
the  voyage. 

We  are  fortunate  to  have  in  London  many 
beautiful  Watteaus  all  hanging  together  in  one 
gallery,  in  Hertford  House.  Our  illustration  gives 
you  a  little  idea  of  the  charm  of  one  of  them,  "  The 
Champs  Elysees";  but  you  must,  if  possible,  see 
for  yourselves  in  the  original  pidfure  the  romantic 
glamour    which    Watteau,    better    than    any    other 

21  I 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

artist,  knows  how  to  throw  over  such  a  scene.  His 
ladies,  in  their  exquisite  clothes,  sit  circle-wise  on 
the  grass.  Two  other  circles  are  seen  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  one  of  children  playing  with  a  dog  forms 
a  fourth.  This  manner  of  grouping  is  characteristic 
of  Watteau,  and  is  probably  the  outcome  of  the 
so-called  "Rococo"  fashion  of  the  day,  which  in 
architecture  and  every  kind  of  decoration  preferred 
the  rounded,  or  shell-like  shape,  to  the  square.  The 
man  in  the  short  cloak  with  his  back  to  us  and  his 
averted  face  is  supposed  to  be  Watteau,  who  often 
painted  himself  thus,  a  spectator  at  the  feast.  The 
marble  group  behind  him  repeats  the  idea  carried 
out  by  the  graceful  revellers  below,  all  touched 
with  a  delicate  languor,  reposing  under  the  waving 
branches  of  those  tall  trees. 

Just  so,  in  the  "Embarkation"  in  the  Louvre,  you 
see  the  rose-wreathed  bust  of  Venus  smiling  in  marble 
at  the  lovers'  flight.  Through  the  tree-tops  you  get 
glimpses  of  the  sky,  attrafting  the  eyes  upw^ards,  and 
thus  increasing  the  apparent  height  of  the  pi(Sture. 
The  world  in  which  these  delicately  dressed  men  and 
women  laugh  and  chatter  softly  and  make  love  and 
exchange  posies  is  a  secure  and  beautiful  one  ;  but 
behind  them  clouds  are  brewing,  never  far  from  the 
horizon.  It  is  as  if  the  brooding  storm-clouds  of  the 
Revolution  were  already  threatening  these  fortunate 
people  in  their  sheltered  gardens,  and  Watteau,  sur- 

212 


■f.      ^ 


I 


WATTEAU 

veying  them,  seems  to  say  :  "  The  day  has  been 
perfedl:,  but  there  will  be  rain  before  nightfall." 

In  the  Dulwich  Gallery  is  another  of  these 
Fetes  Galantes,  *'  The  Colonnade,"  so  beautiful  that 
it  will  repay  you  to  go  and  see  that  one  pi(5ture 
alone.  In  the  garden,  under  high,  carven  pillars, 
guests  are  seated  in  the  calm  of  a  summer  evening, 
the  gallants  in  little  cloaks  of  red  or  blue,  the  ladies 
in  dresses  of  striped  or  shining  satin,  looking  on, 
while  to  the  sound  of  mandolines  two  dancers  pace 
a  stately  minuet.  The  ladies  wave  their  fans  to  the 
music  ;  the  fountain  splashes  like  a  tall  white 
column  against  the  trees  beyond.  As  you  look  you 
find  yourself  in  Watteau's  world — spacious,  beauti- 
ful, and  a  little  sad. 

Only  two  years  ago  the  National  Gallery  was 
enriched  by  the  gift  of  "  The  Scale  of  Love,"  a 
picture  painted  by  Watteau  at  about  the  same  date 
as  his  famous  "  Embarkation."  In  the  centre  a  man 
in  a  silk  suit  of  pale  rose-colour  plays  the  guitar  ; 
a  lady  at  his  feet  holds  some  music  and  looks  up  at 
him,  showing  us  the  outline  of  her  clieek  only.  She 
wears  red-violet  and  brown-rose.  Both  dresses,  you 
see,  are  harmonies  and  variations  on  the  theme  of 
rose-colour.  The  trees  are  autumnal,  russet  in  hue, 
and  on  a  pedestal  is  the  bust  of  a  bearded  man, 
looking  on  with  almost  sinister  intention.  Here,  as 
always,   Watteau   seems   dreaming   of  some   world 

213 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

better  than  the  real  one,  although  in  the  painting 
of  those  enchanted  gardens  of  his  he  has  been,  and 
will  always  remain,  unsurpassed. 

Lancret   (i 690-1 743). 

Lancret  is  the  best  known  of  the  many  artists 
who  followed  in  Watteau's  footsteps;  but  in  his 
work  we  see  the  Frenchman  alone,  untouched  by 
the  wistfulness  which  ran  in  the  Flemish  blood  of 
the  greater  painter.  He  was  a  man  who,  in  spite  of 
his  humble  birth — his  father  was  a  cab-driver — 
absorbed  to  the  full  the  gay,  sparkling  life  of  his 
native  Paris,  and  had  no  other  thought  than  to  re- 
produce it  in  all  its  careless  charm.  Lancret's  brother 
was  an  engraver,  and,  as  his  brother's  pupil,  the  boy 
began  to  follow  his  profession  ;  but  he  became  soon 
conscious  of  his  own  powers,  and  encouraged  by 
Watteau,  he  went  into  the  country  and  sketched 
there  from  nature.  He  painted  two  pictures,  which 
won  for  him  the  membership  of  the  Academy,  and 
he  became  in  his  turn  the  '*  Peintre  des  Fetes 
Galantes."  His  pictures  were  even  mistaken  for 
Watteau's,  and  the  elder  painter,  vexed  at  the  rapid 
success  of  the  younger,  broke  with  him,  and  a 
quarrel  followed,  which  alienated  the  two  men 
for  ever.  Lancret  was  an  industrious,  methodical 
worker,  never  turning  aside  from  the  path  he  had 
traced  out  for  himself.    In  this  he  differed  widely 

214 


♦  FTHt 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

nF-Ai  IF  JRN\^ 


LANCRET 

from  Watteau,  whose  life  was  spent  In  a  restless 
seeking  after  higher  ideals. 

The  one  diversion  which  Lancret  allowed  him- 
self was  the  opera,  and  he  painted  many  pictures  of 
the  best-known  dancers  of  his  day.  Perhaps  the 
most  charining  is  the  pic^ture  of  Madame  Camargo, 
now  in  Hertford  House.  You  see  it  reproduced  in 
our  illustration.  The  dancer  is  dressed  in  the  full 
satin  skirt  of  the  period,  short  enough,  however, 
to  show  her  tripping  feet.  The  dress  is  wreathed 
with  roses,  she  wears  a  big  blue  bow  on  one 
shoulder,  and  a  rose  is  tucked  into  the  lightly 
waved  hair  of  her  small,  closely  dressed  head. 
Notice  the  long  limbs  of  the  dancer.  Lancret 
always  exaggerated  gracefully  the  height  of  his 
figures.  Even  the  boy  with  the  drum  and  fife,  beat- 
ing the  measure  to  the  dance,  has  a  length  of  limb 
more  in  keeping  with  Lancret's  sense  of  beauty  than 
with  reality.  The  summer  sky  above,  the  distant 
blue  of  the  landscape,  the  flowery  grove  where  the 
fiddlers  sit,  all  make  up  a  scene  of  careless  enjoy- 
ment, with  no  hint  here  of  sorrow  to  come. 

In  the  Louvre  are  four  pictures  by  Lancret, 
representing  the  four  seasons  of  the  year,  probably 
painted  to  decorate  the  walls  of  the  Chateau  de  la 
Muette :  ''Spring"  is  symbolized  by  flowers  and 
music  and  a  landscape,  through  which  runs  a  little 
river,  with  a  huntsman  spreading  his  net  to  catch 
birds.     "Summer"   is   an    open-air   dance,    in    the 

215 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

background  reapers  tying  the  sheaves  of  corn. 
"  Autumn "  is  a  picnic  scene  ;  the  donkey  has 
carried  the  provisions,  a  peasant  girl  is  bringing  a 
basket  with  more  contributions  to  the  feast,  the 
grapes  in  the  vineyards  behind  are  ripe  for  the 
vintage.  "Winter"  is  a  skating-party  ;  only  the  men 
are  skating  in  the  misty  landscape,  the  ladies,  their 
hands  in  their  deep  muffs,  are  looking  on  at  the 
pretty  sight. 

There  are  four  little  pictures  in  the  National 
Gallery,  a  series  too,  "The  Four  Ages  of  Man." 
In  the  first,  "  Infancy,"  the  children  play  under  an 
open  colonnade  ;  two  of  them  are  dragging  a  third 
in  her  little  go-cart,  harnessed  by  long  ribbons.  In 
the  second,  "  Youth,"  a  girl  is  dressing  in  an  ante- 
room opening  through  an  arch  on  the  garden 
beyond  ;  long  yellow  curtains  hang  at  the  windows  ; 
a  young  gallant  in  pink  holds  a  mirror  to  the  girl. 
In  the  third,  "  Manhood,"  a  group  of  men  shoot  at 
a  mark  ;  one  man  is  in  a  suit  of  pinky-gold,  another 
all  in  golden  yellow.  The  fourth,  "  Age,"  are  old 
peasant-folk,  who  sit  quietly  spinning  or  sleeping 
before  the  cottage-door.  All  four  pid:ures  are  dis- 
tinguished by  the  clear,  silvery  tone  in  which  they 
are  painted. 

Lancret  did  not  live  to  be  old  :  some  say  his  too 
close  application  to  his  work  shortened  his  life.  He 
died,  as  he  had  lived,  in  Paris,  the  city  of  his 
affection. 

2i6 


CHAPTER  III 

Chardin   (1699-1779). 

We  now  come  to  a  far  greater  name,  Chardin,  the 
man  who  raised  the  study  of  what  we  generally 
call  "still  life"  to  the  highest  possible  plane.  His 
father  was  a  well-known  cabinet-maker  who  de- 
signed billiard-tables  for  Louis  XV.,  and  naturally 
wished  his  son  to  continue  earning  his  living  in 
the  same  fashion.  He  allowed  his  boy,  however, 
to  enter  an  artist's  studio,  where  for  some  time 
Chardin  contented  himself  with  copying  pi6tures. 
It  was  by  chance  only  that  he  began  his  life's 
work  of  painting  the  things  around  him  as  he 
saw  them.  An  artist  named  Coypel  came  one  day 
to  the  studio,  to  get  one  of  the  pupils  to  paint  a 
gun  into  the  pi6ture  of  a  sportsman  he  was  just 
then  engaged  upon.  Chardin  noticed  how  carefully 
Coypel  placed  the  gun  to  be  copied,  so  that  the 
light  should  fall  rightly  upon  it,  and  as  he  set  him- 
self to  reproduce  the  effect,  he  got  an  inspiration 
which  never  afterwards  left  him  :  the  knowledge 
that  the  question  of  light  falling  on  the  things 
around  us  is  the  real  problem  of  every  picture.  His 
first  original  work  was  a  signboard,  which  a  barber- 

217 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

surgeon  ordered  from  him  for  his  shop.  Chardin 
had  certainly  seen  Watteau's  signboard  hanging 
outside  Gersaint's  shop,  and  he  painted  on  a  board 
fourteen  feet  wide  a  whole  scene,  illustrating  a  sur- 
geon's adlivities  in  those  days.  A  wounded  man  has 
been  brought  straight  from  a  duel  to  the  surgeon's 
door,  and  there  he  is  being  tended  by  the  good  man 
for  a  sword-cut  in  his  thigh.  The  invalid  has  been 
stripped  to  the  waist,  and  the  pi6lure  is  treated  most 
realistically.  When  finished,  Chardin  hung  it  over 
the  shop  one  night,  unknown  to  the  owner,  who, 
coming  out  early  the  next  morning,  was  surprised 
to  see  the  street  thronged  with  people  admiring 
his  signboard.  This  was  the  beginning  of  Chardin's 
career. 

Seven  years  after  Watteau's  death,  Chardin  painted 
picture  of  a  fish,  "  The  Skate,"  so  marvellously  that 
he  was  at  once  eledied  to  the  Academy.  A  number 
of  his  pi6lures  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Louvre,  for  he 
painted  everything  that  pleased  him  in  the  gracious, 
comfortable  world  of  middle-class  Parisians,  amongst 
whom  he  lived,  and  everything  that  he  painted  is 
good  to  contemplate.  He  painted  what  used  to  be 
called  "  Trophies  of  the  Chase,"  hares,  rabbits, 
partridges,  suggestive  of  the  kitchen,  where  they 
were  to  be  daintily  cooked  ;  he  painted  fruit  with 
its  distinftive  colour,  its  bloom,  all  the  delicate 
details  of  peach  and  grape  and  melon,  lying  on  their 
flowered  dishes  of  Dresden  china,  or  in  bowls  of 

218 


CHARDIN 

silver,  richly  embossed.  He  painted  olives  too,  all 
silvery-green,  and  fat  bottles  of  wine  or  oil,  and 
everywhere  the  glory  of  reflefted  light  revealing  to 
us  the  poetry  which  too  often  lies  hidden  from  us 
in  the  common  objects  of  our  everyday  life.  He 
painted  kitchen  utensils,  and  cutlets  even,  just  ready 
for  cooking,  or  a  few  simple  things  grouped  to  form 
a  perfe6t  work  of  art,  such  as  a  glass  of  water,  a 
handful  of  nuts,  or  perhaps  two  pinks,  distilling  by 
his  marvellous  art  the  whole  essence  of  the  flowers, 
the  living  miracle  of  their  beauty. 

But  Chardin  painted  figures  also,  those  fine, 
vigorous  housewives,  and  their  maidservants  and 
little  children,  whom  he  knew  well,  occupied  as  he 
saw  them  day  by  day  in  their  busy,  cheerful  lives. 
He  shows  you  the  mistress  of  the  house  in  her 
kitchen,  washing  the  vegetables  for  her  soup,  or 
returning  from  market,  her  carefully  chosen  leg  of 
mutton  in  the  basket  on  her  arm  ;  or  she  is  busy 
with  her  washing,  or  in  her  wine-cellar,  Slie  is 
perhaps  at  her  happiest  with  her  children,  teach- 
ing her  little  girl  to  sew,  while  she  winds  her  wool 
to  knit  the  strong  blue  stockings  that  look  so  well 
with  her  high-heeled  shoes  of  soft-coloured  bro- 
cade ;  or  she  is  putting  on  her  little  boy's  three- 
cornered  hat,  before  he  starts  for  school,  his  books 
under  his  arm.  Chardin's  women,  with  their  quiet 
eyes,  in  their  charming  fresh  dresses  and  large 
aprons,  their  hair  neatly  brushed  away  under  clean 

219 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

white  caps,  have  a  way  of  doing  quite  ordinary 
things  cheerfully  and  well,  which  teaches  us  more 
than  lessons  learned  from  books  of  the  beauty  of 
everyday  life  lived  thus  with  dignity,  order,  and 
grace.  The  pi6lure  on  the  cover  of  this  book  shows 
us  one  such  woman  ;  it  is  the  "  Grace  before 
Meals,"  the  "  Benedicite "  of  the  Louvre.  The 
mother  stands  before  the  pewter  tureen  of  steaming 
soup,  repeating  the  sacred  words  to  her  child,  who, 
seated  demurely  in  her  tall  chair,  folds  her  hands 
reverently  in  prayer.  All  the  details  show  Chardin's 
skill,  the  brazier  with  the  light  playing  on  its 
copper  surface,  the  folds  of  the  ample,  coarse  table- 
cloth, the  graceful  stripe  of  the  stuff  on  the  backs  of 
the  comfortable  chairs.  Over  all  is  an  atmosphere 
of  peace,  and,  knowing  how  near  the  fierce  times 
of  the  Revolution  are  drawing,  we  wonder,  and 
hope  that  the  lives  of  these  righteous  people  may 
have  saved  them  from  destru(ftion  in  that  Reign  of 
Terror. 

Chardin  married  at  the  age  of  thirty-two.  His 
wife,  always  sickly,  died  after  a  few  years,  and  he 
did  not  find  it  easy  to  make  a  good  living  out  of 
his  pictures,  which,  largely  on  account  of  their  sub- 
jects, were  not  popular  with  the  rich  patrons  of  the 
day.  Foreign  lovers  of  art  appreciated  them  better 
than  the  Parisians.  In  Vienna,  in  Sweden,  in  far-off 
Russia,  princely  and  royal  personages  bought  his 
pid:ures  for  their  galleries,  and  Chardin   remained 

220 


CHARDIN 

content  with  the  prices  he  had  fixed  when  he  first 
began  to  paint.  Fortunately,  his  second  marriage 
brought  him  not  only  a  clever,  sympathetic  wife, 
but  also  her  little  fortune,  which  helped  him  to  live 
free  from  care  in  the  modest  way  he  preferred. 
Modesty  is,  indeed,  the  keynote  to  Chardin's  char- 
ac^ter.  He  compared  himself  in  his  work  to  a 
coasting-steamer,  only  touching  at  the  outlying 
ports  of  the  island  of  art.  He  carried  this  honesty 
and  simplicity  with  him  to  the  end  of  his  long  life. 
Sometimes  the  indifference  of  the  critics  to  his 
work  would  sadden  him  for  a  time,  but  the  work 
itself  was  always  a  refreshment  to  him,  and  his 
wife's  tender  devotion  was  his  solace  to  the  last. 
There  is  a  portrait  of  him,  painted  by  himself,  in 
the  Louvre,  showing  us  exadlly  how  he  must  have 
looked  in  his  old  age.  He  wears  a  handkerchief 
tied  round  his  head,  a  shade  over  his  eyes,  and 
heavily  framed  spe6tacles  on  his  nose.  It  is  the  face 
of  a  worker,  of  one  who,  as  he  said  of  himself,  had 
to  take  an  infinity  of  trouble  over  each  picture,  but 
who  never  spared  himself,  so  happy  was  he  in  the 
knowledge  of  his  art  thus  steadily  amassed. 

Not  many  years  ago  the  National  Gallery  bought 
one  of  Chardin's  pictures,  "  La  Fontaine."  A  woman, 
dressed  in  the  striped  skirt,  jacket,  and  blue  apron 
which  old-fashioned  servants  still  wear  in  remote 
country  places  in  France,  is  drawing  water  from 
the  "  fontaine,"   or  large  copper  vessel   in   which 

221 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

the  water  was  kept  before  the  days  of  water-pipes. 
You  will  notice  the  various  cooking  utensils  kept 
in  this  back-kitchen  or  scullery.  One  "  still-life " 
picture  is  to  be  seen  there,  too,  painted  when 
Chardin  was  fifty-five  years  old.  It  is  only  a  black 
bottle,  a  glass  half-filled  with  red  wine,  a  loaf  of 
bread,  and  a  knife  ready  to  cut  it — just  the  materials 
for  the  homeliest  meal,  but  a  good  example  of  the 
beauty  with  which  he  invests  the  simplest  gifts  of 
God. 


222 


CHAPTER  IV 

Boucher   (1703-1770). 

Boucher  is  an  artist  who  differs  entirely  from 
Chardin.  His  work  interests  us  in  a  different  way 
also.  He  represents  the  eighteenth  century,  hut  not 
the  world  of  real  people  in  whose  society  Chardin 
lived  and  painted.  He  represents  rather  the  ideals  of 
those  courtiers  who  moved  like  satellite  stars  around 
the  sun,  their  King.  Louis  XIV.  had  little  love  for 
truth,  least  of  all  in  art.  His  ideals  were  all  for 
pomp  and  dignity  and  a  kind  of  sublime  etiquette. 
W^hen,  in  171 5,  he  was  succeeded  by  Louis  XV. 
there  was  a  great  lessening  of  dignity,  but  no 
greater  love  of  truth.  Pleasure  was  the  one  aim  of 
all  at  the  Court.  The  courtiers  surrounded  them- 
selves with  everything  that  was  refined,  charming, 
and  elegant.  Prettiness  was  their  idol,  and  the  chief 
painter  who  could  supply  them  with  such  pretti- 
ness in  his  pictures  was  Boucher. 

Boucher's  father  was  a  painter  in  a  small  way, 
but  with  taste  enough  to  apprentice  his  promising 
son  to  a  competent  artist,  a  man  named  Lemoine, 
who  was  a  theatrical  scene-painter,  making  admir- 
able scenery  for  the  classical   operas   oi   the   period. 

223 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

This  kind  of  painting  was  good  pra6lice  for 
Boucher,  who  filled  up  his  spare  hours  with  paint- 
ing saints  and  Madonnas  for  sale  outside  the  church- 
doors,  and  with  engraving  little  illustrations  for 
breviaries.  He  became  in  time  a  well-known 
engraver,  and  was  chosen  to  finish  the  greater  part 
of  the  studies  left  by  Watteau  at  his  death.  He  was 
a  quick  worker,  and  gained  his  living  easily,  making 
time  in  his  busy  day  to  paint  independently  as  well. 
In  1 724  he  won  the  Prix  de  Rome,  which  Watteau 
(to  his  eternal  regret,)  had  missed.  We  do  not  know 
much  about  Boucher's  time  in  Rome,  except  that  he 
found  Raphael's  pi6lures  "  insipid "  and  Michel- 
angelo's figures  "deformed";  so  the  prize  appears 
to  have  been  wasted  upon  him,  and,  having  fallen 
into  ill-health  there,  he  returned,  before  his  time  in 
Rome  was  over,  to  Paris.  There  he  married  a  pretty 
young  girl,  who  excelled  in  making  small  copies  of 
her  husband's  pictures,  and  with  this  marriage  in  1 73  3 
his  time  of  prosperity  began.  He  exhibited  pictures 
every  year,  and  painted  chiefly  mythological  sub- 
je6ls,  in  which  he  represented,  not  the  austere  gods 
of  Greece,  but  the  pretty,  smiling,  flower-decked 
deities  of  the  later  Roman  legends.  There  are  many 
of  his  pi6tures  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  titles  tell  how 
thoroughly  he  exploited  mythological  personages 
in  his  choice  of  subje(5ts  ;  for  in  them  you  see  Diana 
leaving  her  bath  with  her  attendant  nymphs,  Venus 
ordering    battle-arms   from    Vulcan,   Venus  at   her 

224 


BOUCHER 

toilet,  the  Three  Graces,  and  so  on.  He  painted 
adorable  Cupids — curly,  dimpled  little  fellows, 
tumbling  about  in  the  clouds,  hovering  mischiev- 
ously round  Venus,  their  mother,  playing  even  at 
the  knees  of  the  Muses. 

Boucher  painted  country  idylls  too,  but  his 
country  was  a  fairy  place,  where  the  peasants 
seemed  to  have  lost  their  way  from  the  stage 
of  the  Opera,  and  the  shepherds  danced  with  shep- 
herdesses in  satins  and  ribbons,  high-heeled  shoes 
on  their  feet,  and  flowers  on  their  crooks.  His  land- 
scapes have  no  dream-like  charm  such  as  Watteau 
gives  us,  but  they  are  as  pretty  as  possible,  with 
tinkling  streams  and  mossy  banks  and  marble  ruins. 
You  see  such  subjects  over  and  over  again  in  his 
designs  for  tapestries,  the  faftories  for  which  had 
lately  been  revived,  and  there  you  will  see,  too, 
farmyard  scenes,  with  charmingly  thatched  barns, 
mill-wheels,  pigeon-houses,  all  grouped  in  elegant 
confusion  on  the  wide  canvases.  Living  things 
animate  the  pretty  scene — birds  in  flight,  flurried 
sheep,  barking  dogs :  all  is  alive  and  gay  and  full 
of  cheerful  movement.  The  word  '*  picturesque," 
which  I  have  never  had  to  use  before,  best  describes 
Boucher's  work,  and  since  the  idea  of  utilizing 
familiar  scenes  in  this  attractively  artificial  manner 
was  new  and  pleasing,  his  popularity  became 
enormous. 

Besides  designing   tapestries,   Boucher  decorated 

225  y 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

rooms.  These  decorations  have  mostly  perished  with 
the  houses  they  adorned,  but  a  few  years  ago  one 
existed  still  in  Paris.  The  description  of  it  reads 
like  a  fairy-story,  for  the  walls  were  covered  with 
a  painted  trellis  of  roses,  revealing  vistas  of  river- 
banks,  pink  flamingoes,  gorgeous  peacocks,  and  rare 
birds,  gay  with  delicate  plumage.  Doves  were  fly- 
ing overhead,  and,  of  course,  Cupids  too — tricksy 
darlings,  spurting  the  water  from  a  fountain  through 
their  half-closed  fingers. 

Boucher  worked  at  his  easel  ten  hours  a  day.  His 
head  teemed  with  ideas  ;  life  was  not  long  enough 
for  all  he  planned  to  do.  Nothing  was  too  large  for 
him,  nor  too  small.  He  painted  tiny  scenes  of  great 
perfection  on  the  tiniest  objec^ts — fans,  watch-cases, 
ostrich-eggs,  china  cups,  panels  for  ladies'  coaches. 
In  addition,  he  carried  on  actively  his  earlier  work 
for  the  stage,  and  as  late  as  1743  we  hear  of  an 
opera  for  which  he  painted  the  backgrounds.  Later 
still  he  designed  the  scenery  for  a  Chinese  fete  ; 
Chinese  decorations  were  the  rage  under  Louis  XV. 
For  his  was  the  true  kingdom  of  Rococo — a  word 
originally  used  only  for  a  style  in  architefture,  but 
later  employed  to  signify  that  eighteenth-century 
decoration,  where  shells  and  flowers  predominate, 
and  prettiness  in  design  takes  the  place  of  nobility 
of  line. 

Another  large  class  of  Boucher's  pi(5tures  repre- 
sents scenes  taken  from  everyday  life.  Our  illustration 

226 


I 


I.K    l.rlKUNKK. 
[Allf  tikf  f'i,  titrr  bv  Hoiuhrt  in  thr  /.ou:-rr:) 


BOUCHER 

is  a  good  example  of  this  class,  and  is  from  a  pi6lurt 
painted  by  him  in  1763,  only  seven  years  before  his 
death.  Notice  the  prettiness  of  the  room  in  which 
the  children  are  breakfasting.  Over  the  mirror 
hangs  a  little  painting,  and  you  see  the  familiar 
shell  of  the  Rococo  period.  There  is  a  Chinese  tray 
of  red  lacquer  on  the  polished  table,  and  the  shelves 
on  each  side  of  the  mirror  are  of  lacquer  too.  The 
little  girl  with  her  doll  wears  a  cap  like  the  child 
saying  grace  in  the  Chardin  picture.  The  doll  is 
dressed  in  a  full  hoop  like  a  grown-up  lady,  but 
the  woolly  sheep  on  the  stand  is  very  like  the  toy 
sheep  in  our  shops  to-day.  Boucher  was  a  great 
lover  of  pretty  things  brought  from  China  and  the 
East — treasures  which  he  kept  in  his  studio,  and 
loved  to  show  to  his  friends  when  they  visited  him. 
There  is  one  Boucher  in  the  National  Gallery, 
"  Pan  and  Syrinx."  The  pastoral  god  steals  up 
behind  the  nymph,  Syrinx,  and  her  companion, 
who  lie  stretched  out  safe  from  the  heat  of  the  sun 
in  the  river-bed.  Water-weeds  and  flowers  surround 
them,  and  above  hover,  as  usual,  two  sportive 
Cupids.  The  clear  water  flows  from  a  classic  vase 
on  which  Syrinx  rests  her  arm.  In  Hertford  House 
are  three  pi(^tures  by  Boucher,  one  the  portrait  of 
the  famous  Madame  de  Pompadour  of  the  Court  of 
Louis  X\'.,  a  great  patron  of  the  painter's  talent,  and 
a  woman  of  much  taste  and  cultivation.  All  three 
pictures  were  in  her  own  collection. 

227 


FRENCH   PAINTERS 

Boucher  was  the  Direction  of  the  GobeHns,  where 
the  tapestries  were  woven.  He  was  also  "  Premier 
Peintre  du  Roi."  He  had  probably  an  official  resi- 
dence in  the  Louvre,  for  it  was  there,  after  much 
suffering  from  asthma,  that  he  died  at  the  age  of 
sixty-seven.  On  his  easel  was  found  a  pidture  that 
he  had  just  begun  as  a  present  to  his  doctor. 


228 


CHAPTER  V 

David    (1748-1825). 

David  was  taken  as  a  young  man  to  Boucher's 
studio,  and  followed  his  profession  by  his  advice  ; 
hut  never  were  two  artists  more  dissimilar.  David's 
father  was  a  small  tradesman,  and  after  his  early 
death  in  a  duel,  the  boy  was  brought  up  by  an 
uncle,  an  architect.  To  David,  the  young  man  full 
ot  the  new  ideas  afloat  in  France  on  the  eve  of  the 
great  Revolution,  Boucher's  work  seemed  afFe61:ed, 
stale,  and  absurdly  over-elaborate.  In  1775  David 
gained  the  Prix  de  Rome,  and  he  lived  in  Italy 
for  five  years.  About  ten  years  before  his  arrival, 
Winckelmann,  the  German  who  of  all  men  had 
most  reformed  critical  opinions  on  art  and  literature, 
had  died  tragically,  murdered  on  a  journey  at  a  small 
inn  for  the  sake  of  the  valuable  antique  coins  he 
carried.  But  in  Rome  his  influence  was  still  para- 
mount, and  effected  a  sudden,  violent  change  in  the 
young  Frenchman,  himself  a  seeker  after  truth  ; 
for  Winckelmann  had  possessed  the  key  which  first 
unlocked  the  hidden  treasures  of  antiquity  for  those 
who,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
had  grown  weary  of  the  surface  smoothness  of  the 

229 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

times.  He  had  begun  to  unearth  the  towns  of  Her- 
culaneum  and  Pompeii,  and  had  discovered  the 
buried  cities  which  had  lain  there  so  many  hun- 
dred years,  safe  covered  up  in  the  fallen  lava  from 
Vesuvius.  He  had  written  inspiringly  about  them, 
and  about  the  earlier  marvels  of  Greek  art.  His 
enthusiasm  had  awaked  a  kind  of  second  Renais- 
sance, originating,  like  the  first,  in  Italy.  David, 
young  and  impressionable,  drank  of  this  new  know- 
ledge— a  thirsty  man  at  a  pure  fountain ;  and,  under 
this  inspiration,  he  painted  pidlures  so  different 
from  those  of  his  predecessors  that  their  immediate 
success  appears  to  us  a  miracle  as  great  in  the  world 
of  art  as  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  in  the 
world  of  politics. 

You  will  remember  how  Boucher's  titles  showed 
us  with  what  sentimental  ideals  his  pi(ftures  were 
planned;  so  David,  true  to  his  new  inspiration, 
forsook  mythological  fables  of  gods  and  goddesses, 
and  painted  stern  Roman  stories,  teaching  the 
Parisians  how  blind  Belisarius,  brave  and  loyal 
leader  of  Justinian's  armies,  but  fallen  under  the 
ban  of  imperial  displeasure,  begged  his  bread  in  his 
captivity,  calling  to  the  passers-by :  "  Give  an 
obolus  to  Belisarius,  who  rose  by  merit,  and  was 
cast  down  by  envy."  This  was  the  first  of  David's 
pictures  to  be  exhibited  in  Paris.  His  second,  the 
father  of  the  Horatii  blessing  his  sons  before  the 
combat,  was  painted  after  he  had  become  member 

230 


DAVID 

of  the  Academy  and  "  Peintre  dii  Roi,"  and  was  a 
commission  from  his  master,  Louis  XVI. 

But  David's  principles  led  him  to  forsake  his 
master,  and  avenge  the  tyrannies,  under  which 
France  had  groaned  so  long,  on  that  almost  innocent 
scapegoat,  Louis  XVL  In  the  famous  Jacohin  Club, 
the  headquarters  of  the  Revolutionists,  David 
worked  adively  for  the  cause  of  freedom,  and  when 
the  members  of  the  Convention  were  chosen,  who 
were  to  hold  the  reins  of  a  patriotic  Government, 
David  held  a  foremost  place,  with  the  title  of 
official  painter.  You  will  know  enough  about  the 
French  Revolution  and  its  crimes  to  realize  how 
far  the  French  patriots  were  from  carrying  out 
their  ideals  ;  but  underlying  the  lust  for  power  and 
the  cruelty  which  grew  up  with  it,  there  was  an 
ardent  desire  for  purity  in  political  life,  and  as  an 
incitement  they  sought,  often  most  ignorantly,  to 
revive  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  mighty  days 
of  Republican  Greece  and  Rome.  Marat  and 
Robespierre  were  both  intimate  friends  and  asso- 
ciates of  David,  and,  after  Robespierre's  fall,  he 
ceased  to  occupy  himself  ac^tively  with  politics,  and 
was  even  for  a  time  imprisoned  in  the  Luxembourg, 
employing  his  enforced  leisure  with  painting  the 
"  Sabine  Women,"  now  in  the  Louvre.  But  with 
the  coming  of  Napoleon  into  power,  David  was  at 
once  raised  to  an  important  position,  for  Napoleon 
cared  much  for  art,  and  knew  the  wisdom  of  en- 

231 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

couraging  artists  among  his  new  suhje6ts.  David 
was  named  "  Peintre  de  TEmpereur,"  and  in  this 
capacity  he  painted  the  "  Consecration  of  Napoleon 
by  Pope  Pius  VII.,"  which  had  taken  place  at  Notre- 
Dame  in  Paris  on  December  2,  1804.  The  artist 
shows  us  Napoleon,  himself  just  consecrated,  placing 
a  crown  on  the  head  of  the  Empress  Josephine. 
The  pi6ture  is  full  of  pomp  and  splendour,  far 
enough  removed,  we  feel,  from  the  austere  ideals 
with  which  the  Republicans  had  set  out.  The 
dresses  of  the  Court  ladies,  the  whole  setting  of  the 
scene,  are  carefully  studied,  down  to  the  smallest 
details,  but  David's  love  of  a  classical  simplicity  is 
sufficiently  indicated  by  the  dignity  of  the  poses  and 
the  general  air  of  imperial  sobriety. 

Whilst  a  visitor  at  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries, 
the  Pope  sat  to  David  for  his  portrait,  and  the  Holy 
Father  is  said  to  have  confessed  to  a  feelino-  of  terror 
when  he  found  himself  shut  up  alone  in  the  room 
with  a  Jacobin.  This  portrait  is  one  of  his  most 
important  pidtures ;  but  the  work  by  which  we 
remember  him  best  is  another  portrait,  his  Madame 
Recamier,  a  very  pleasing  representation  of  the 
beautiful  and  witty  banker's  wife,  who,  during  the 
time  that  Napoleon  was  Consul,  received  every- 
body worth  knowing  in  her  salon.  This  pifture 
was  painted  early  in  1804  ;  it  is  in  the  Louvre  now, 
and  is  typical  of  the  taste  of  the  times,  as  you  see 
in  the  flowing  lines  of  the  simple  white  dress,  the 

232 


I'OKIKAII    <«l-    MAHAMK   SKUI/AIT. 
(.Ijh-r  llif  /ill  Inn-  by  haviit  in  Ihr  l.oiivrr.) 


DAVID 

severity  of  the  plain,  classical  furniture,  the  sofa,  the 
foot-stool,  the  tall,  antique  lamp,  showing  how  far 
France  had  travelled  from  the  days  of  Louis  XV^, 
when  dress  was  all  flounces  and  broken  lines,  delicate 
laces  and  knots  of  soft  ribbons,  and  furniture  all 
gilded,  rounded  in  shape  and  displaying  a  hundred 
fantastic  ornamentations. 

Our  illustration  of  Madame  Seriziat  and  her 
child  shows  a  different  side  to  David's  character, 
and  it  is  hard  to  associate  the  painter  of  this  pretty, 
smiling  mother  with  the  regicide  and  fanatic  we 
know  him  to  have  been.  Yet  from  it  we  learn  how, 
all  through  those  troublous  times,  mothers  did 
pick  nosegays  to  make  their  babies  laugh,  and  wear 
charming  white  frocks,  and  know  the  joy  of  homely, 
happy  days ;  fa6ts  that,  reading  only  history-books, 
we  are  apt  to  forget. 

We  have  a  portrait  by  David  in  the  National 
Gallery,  Eliza  Bonaparte,  Grand  Duchess  of  Tus- 
cany, bought  not  long  ago  in  Florence.  It  is  un- 
finished, but  it  is  a  vivid  portrait  of  the  young 
Grand  Duchess  in  the  high-waisted,  white  dress  of 
the  period,  with  an  astonishingly  bright  shoulder- 
strap  and  girdle  of  scarlet.  She  has  the  strongly 
marked  features,  grey  eyes,  and  curious  lank,  untidy 
hair  of  the  Bonapartes.  Behind  her  is  an  Italian 
landscape  of  lake  and  mountains. 

David's  portraits  are  the  best  part  of  his  work  ; 
he  drew  well,  and  he  painted  them  with  a  kind  ot 

2.33 


FRENCH  PAINTERS 

severe  sincerity  that  charms  the  eye.  In  his  more 
ambitious  pi6tures  there  are  often  passages  of  great 
beauty,  but  he  sometimes  becomes  theatrical  by 
over-emphasizing  the  attitude  of  his  figures.  He 
was  a  good  teacher,  and  his  remarks  to  his  pupils 
show  that  his  ideals  flew  far  higher  than  his  achieve- 
ment. These  ideals  were  based,  as  I  have  said,  on 
classical  art,  and  particularly  on  the  sculpture  of 
late  Greece  and  of  Rome.  When  he  heard  of  the 
Parthenon  marbles,  which  Lord  Elgin  brought  to 
England  in  1810,  he  said  they  made  him  long  to 
be  a  young  man  and  begin  his  whole  career  over 
again. 

After  Napoleon's  downfall  at  Waterloo,  David 
retired  to  Brussels,  where  he  was  treated  with  much 
respedt ;  his  health  was  bad,  but  he  worked  on  to 
the  last,  and  was  correcting  an  engraving  from  his 
"  Leonidas  at  Thermopylae "  when  he  died,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-seven.  That  pi6ture  had  been  the 
last  he  painted  before  he  was  forced  to  leave  France. 
On  the  rock  in  the  background  is  the  inscription, 
*'  Passers-by,  go  say  to  the  Lacedemonians,  that  we 
died  here  obeying  our  orders." 


234 


PART  VIII 

THE  ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF 
PAINTERS 

The  history  of  art  in  our  native  land  goes  back  to 
the  thirteenth  century,  when  EngHsh  miniature- 
painters  were  known  all  over  the  Continent,  and  the 
embroidery-work  of  English  nuns  was  highly  prized 
in  every  well-appointed  foreign  convent.  Our  glass- 
painters  were  well  known  too,  and  our  architects, 
although  the  plan  of  their  great  cathedrals  was  for 
the  most  part  borrowed  from  the  sister-churches 
in  the  North  of  France,  and  adapted  to  English 
uses.  Paintings  of  the  period  you  can  still  see  on 
the  walls  of  the  Chapter-house  at  Westminster, 
which  hold  their  own  even  when  compared  to 
work  produced  in  Italy  at  the  same  period.  But 
the  two  centuries  following  were  lean  years  for 
England.  First  the  French  Wars,  and  then  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  brought  in  their  train  poverty 
and  unrest. 

It    was   not   till   the   reign  of  Henry   VII.   that 
our   nation  found    peace   to   enjoy,   and   wealth   to 

235 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

procure,  treasures  of  art.  Then  it  came  about  that 
in  the  dearth  of  native  artists  caused  by  the 
long  years  of  warfare,  foreign  artists  had  to  be 
employed. 

Mabuse  (1472-1535),  the  Flemish  painter,  whose 
"  Adoration  of  the  Magi "  now  hangs  in  the 
National  Gallery,  was  brought  over  to  paint  for 
Henry  \ll. ;  Holbein,  the  German,  was,  as  you 
will  remember,  Court  painter  to  Henry  X'^III.  ;  after 
him  came  the  Dutchman,  Antonis  Mor  (1519- 
1576),  who  was  sent  to  England  in  1553  to  paint 
the  portrait  of  the  Queen,  Mary,  wife  of  Philip  II. 
of  Spain.  This  portrait  is  now  in  the  Prado  at 
Madrid.  You  can  see  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  Mor's  fine  pi6ture,  of  Sir  Thomas  Gresham, 
merchant  and  hanker,  who  played  such  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  reigns  of  Edward  Yl.  and  his  sister 
Mary,  founding  the  Royal  Exchange  and  a  college 
in  London,  still  called  by  his  name,  "  for  the  gratui- 
tous instru6tion  of  all  who  choose  to  attend  the 
lectures." 

To  the  same  period  belongs  Hans  Eworts,  of  a 
Flemish  family,  whose  dim  but  capable  portraits 
are  to  be  found  in  private  collections  all  over 
England  (1543-1574). 

The  next  painter,  Isaac  Oliver  (i  556-1617), 
though  brought  up  in  England  and  reckoned  as 
an  Englishman,  was  of  foreign  parentage  on  both 
sides,  with   a   French  father  and  a  Dutch   mother. 

236 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

He  is  best  known  as  a  miniature-painter,  but  there 
has  been  lately  discovered  a  fine  picture  by  him  of 
Henry,  the  eldest  son  of  James  I.,  on  horseback. 
The  gallant  young  Prince,  who  died  so  early,  was 
himself  a  patron  of  the  arts,  and  when  he  was 
created  Prince  of  Wales  he  chose  for  his  surveyor  of 
works  Inigo  Jones,  whose  name  you  will  remember 
as  architect  to  Charles  I. 

Charles  I.  was  the  patron  of  Van  Dyck  and 
Rubens,  both  Flemings;  Sir  Peter  Lely  (1618- 
1680),  whom  Pepys  in  his  Diary  describes  as  "a 
mighty  proud  man  and  full  of  state,"  was  Court 
painter  to  Charles  II.,  and  first  came  to  England  in 
the  train  of  William  of  Orange,  "  Dutch  William," 
who  had  come  to  wed  Mary,  daughter  of  Charles  I. 
This  was  in  1641,  the  year  of  Van  Dyck's  death, 
and  Lely  remained  in  England  painting  at  first 
quite  in  the  manner  of  the  Flemish  master,  into 
whose  shoes  he  had  stepped.  He  continued  to 
flourish  through  the  Civil  War,  was  patronized  by 
Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides,  and  even  proposed  a 
scheme  for  the  decoration  of  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, which,  however,  was  not  carried  out.  At 
the  Restoration,  this  adaptable  artist  became  Court 
painter  to  Charles  11.,  and  his  series  of  royal 
favourites,  delicately  finished,  hangs  now  in  the 
galleries  of  Hampton  Court.  Another  series,  his 
Admirals,  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Painted  Chamber  at 
Greenwich  Hospital  ;  by  him,  too,  are  the  portraits 

237 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  Wycherley,  the 
playwright,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Lely 
had  a  town-house  in  Covent  Garden  and  a  country- 
house  at  Kew  ;  he  was  much  esteemed  for  his  wit 
and  for  his  good  taste  in  all  matters  concerned  with 
art.  His  work  had  a  lasting  influence  on  those 
artists  who  followed  him,  and  the  English  school 
of  painting  which  flourished  in  the  eighteenth 
century  had  good  cause  to  be  grateful  to  the 
memory  of  the  Dutchman,  Peter  Lely,  whose 
real  name,  by  the  way,  was  Pieter  van  der  Vaes, 
surnamed  le  Lys  or  Lely  from  the  sign  of  the 
lily  which  decorated  his  father's  shop  at  The 
Hague. 

You  may  see  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  a 
fine  picture  of  one  Endymion  Porter,  Gentleman 
of  the  Bedchamber  to  Charles  I.,  painted  by  an 
artist  who  bears  the  thoroughly  English  name  of 
William  Dobson  (i 6 10-1646).  Dobson's  method 
was,  however,  formed  entirely  by  Van  Dyck,  who 
discovered  him  by  chance  one  day,  employed  him 
to  help  as  drapery-man  in  his  studio,  and  taught 
him  to  copy  his  work  so  exactly  that  their  pictures 
have  often  been  mistaken.  After  his  master's  death, 
Dobson  was  appointed  Serjeant  Painter  to  Charles  I., 
but  he  was  ruined  by  the  Civil  War,  which  broke 
out  shortly  afterwards.  In  Cromwell's  time  he 
sank  into  debt  and  dishonour,  and  was  unable  to 
retrieve  his  position  at  the  Restoration.    We  have, 

238 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

therefore,  to  wait  till  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne, 
with  her  "  entirely  English  heart,"  before  any 
great  English  artist  appears  to  paint  pictures  which 
shall  bear  on  them  the  "  strong  stamp  of  their 
native  land." 


239 


CHAPTER  I 

Hogarth  (1697- 1764). 

This  first  English  painter  was  Hogarth,  who,  born 
while  William  111.  still  reigned,  lived  to  see  George 
III.  on  the  throne,  and  throughout  that  period 
drew,  unwearyingly,  a  long  series  of  pictures  which 
faithfully  reflect  the  various  habits  and  customs  of 
his  age.  His  father-in-law.  Sir  James  Thornhill, 
himself  Serjeant  Painter,  was  employed  by  Queen 
Anne  to  paint  the  dome  of  S.  Paul's,  newly  rebuilt 
after  the  Great  Fire,  a  piece  of  patriotism  which 
caused  enormous  disgust  to  the  Italian  artist,  Ricci, 
who  had  made  sure  of  the  commission.  Thornhill's 
house,  decorated  with  wall-paintings  by  his  own 
hand,  still  stands  in  Dean  Street,  Soho,  looking  like 
the  setting  of  one  of  his  son-in-law's  pictures,  with 
its  spacious  panelled  rooms,  its  wide,  shallow  stair- 
cases, and  its  marble-paved  hall,  made  conveniently 
large  to  admit  the  linkmen  and  the  sedan-chairs  of 
the  guests. 

Hogarth  was  born  in  the  parish  of  Great  S.  Bar- 
tholomew's, "  next  door  to  Mr.  Downinge's,  the 
Printer's,"  but  he  came  of  an  old  yeoman  family 
from  Westmorland,  and   was  sent  to  school   in  his 

240 


HOGARTH 

father's  county.  This  father  was  an  unsuccessful 
Hterary  man,  and  Hogarth,  by  his  own  wish,  left 
school  early  to  help  his  family,  and  became  appren- 
tice to  a  silver-plate  engraver  at  the  Sign  of  the 
Golden  Angel  in  Cranbourne  Street,  where  he 
learnt  to  engrave  the  great  salvers  and  tankards  of 
the  period,  and  designed  a  business  card  for  his 
master,  with  the  Angel  itself  bearing  a  stout  palm- 
branch  on  it.  When  he  later  set  up  as  an  engraver 
he  designed  his  own  card,  decorating  it  with  Cupids. 
It  bears  the  date  1720.  Hogarth  began  by  engrav- 
ing coats-of-arms  and  shop-bills,  but  he  rose  quickly 
to  more  ambitious  work,  and  illustrated  books  for 
the  booksellers.  In  this  way  he  made  a  complete 
set  of  illustrations  for  Butler's  "  Hudibras." 

He  probably  found  the  want  of  better  instruction 
in  drawing,  for  about  this  time  he  began  to  attend 
the  private  art-school  kept  by  Sir  James  Thornhill, 
and  there  learnt  to  paint  in  oils.  There,  too,  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Thornhill's  daughter, 
Jane,  with  whom  he  made  a  runaway  marriage, 
the  young  lady  being  then  only  nineteen  years  old. 
She  must  have  been  a  handsome  girl,  to  judge  from 
her  portrait  as  "  Sigismunda,"  in  the  National 
Gallery,  though,  as  that  was  painted  more  than 
twenty  years  later,  her  charms  had  had  time  to 
mature.  Her  parents  forgave  the  young  couple  after 
the  appearance  of  Hogarth's  first  series  of  narra- 
tive pidures.  To  paint  pictures  on  a  canvas  as  a 

241  R 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

story  is  told  by  scenes  on  the  stage  was  a  new 
idea  in  his  time,  and  this  first  series  had  a  great 
success.  He  engraved  his  pictures  himself,  and  sold 
the  set  to  subscribers,  of  whom  he  had,  even  at  that 
time,  no  fewer  than  twelve  hundred,  as  his  account- 
books  tell  us. 

In  1733  Hogarth  took  the  house  in  Leicester 
Square,  in  which  he  lived  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  It 
was  called  "  The  Golden  Head,"  from  a  bust  of  Van 
Dyck  w^hich  Hogarth  himself  had  carved  in  cork, 
and  gilded.  His  father-in-law  died  about  this  time, 
and  Hogarth,  inheriting  his  studio  and  its  fittings, 
decided  to  carry  on  his  school  of  art,  which  he  did 
with  great  success  for  over  thirty  years. 

His  next  series  of  eight  pi6tures  was  called  "  The 
Rake's  Progress,"  a  name  which  he  copied  from 
Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  This  series  was 
bought  by  Beckford,  the  Lord  Mayor,  but,  fortu- 
nately for  us,  was  purchased  later  by  Sir  John 
Soane,  the  architect  of  the  Bank  of  England,  who 
left  his  pictures  and  his  house  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields  to  the  nation.  If  you  go  there  you  will  see 
how  Hogarth  describes  the  different  episodes  in  the 
life  of  this  worthless  young  gentleman  from  the 
beginning,  when  the  tailor  is  measuring  him  for  his 
mourning  after  his  father's  death,  right  through  his 
shameful  career,  occupied  only  in  dissipating  in  the 
most  disgraceful  fashion  the  fortune  he  had  in- 
herited.  We   see   him   in    his    dressing-room,    sur- 

242 


HOGARTH 

rounded  by  sycophants,  with  his  music-master 
phiying  opera-tunes  on  his  harpsichord,  and  his 
fencing-master  ready  to  give  him  a  lesson  ;  again, 
he  is  in  a  tavern  in  Drury  Lane  after  a  night  of 
drink  and  folly  ;  later  he  is  being  arrested  for  debt 
in  S.  James's  Street  on  his  way  to  pay  his  respects 
to  Queen  Caroline  at  the  palace,  the  familiar  front 
of  which  we  see  in  the  background.  The  silly  fellow 
is  wearing  a  grand  new  Court  suit  :  a  Welshman 
with  a  tall  leek  in  his  three-cornered  hat  tells  us 
that  this  was  S.  David's  Day,  March  i,  the  Queen's 
birthday.  The  next  pi(5:ture  is  his  marriage  in  old 
Marylebone  Church  to  an  elderly,  one-eyed  bride, 
chosen  for  her  money,  which  he  needs  to  patch  up 
his  fallen  fortunes;  but  his  new  wealth  goes  the 
way  of  the  old.  In  the  next  picture,  he  curses  his 
fate,  a  ruined  gambler,  in  White's  coffee-house  in 
Covent  Garden.  This  tavern  had  been  recently 
burned  down,  and  Hogarth  paints  the  flames 
already  playing  round  the  wainscot.  The  rake  is 
next  seen  sitting  in  the  Fleet  Prison,  dunned  for  his 
daily  expenses,  upbraided  by  his  outraged  wife.  The 
last  stage  of  degradation  is  reached,  when,  stripped 
and  raving,  he  lies,  a  madman,  in  Bedlam  Hospital, 
two  fine  ladies  in  full  dress  standing  by,  according 
to  the  strange  fashion  of  the  time,  to  see  the  show. 
In  spite  of  the  success  of  this  second  series  of 
pictures  when  engraved,  Hogarth  was  ambitious  to 
show  his   talent  in  other  directions.   He   therefore 

243 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

painted  two  large  canvases,  "  The  Pool  of  Beth- 
esda  "  and  "  The  Good  Samaritan,"  which  he  pre- 
sented to  S.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  where  they 
still  hang  on  the  staircase.  He  painted  portraits 
too,  among  them  that  of  Captain  Coram,  who 
endowed  the  Foundling  Hospital.  Hogarth  was 
much  interested  in  this  charity,  and  was  one  of  the 
original  governors.  He  painted  "  The  March  to 
Finchley,"  describing  the  Guards  leaving  London 
on  the  road  to  Scotland  to  quell  the  Stuart  Rising 
of  1745.  This  picture  was  sold  by  lottery,  and,  as 
good  luck,  would  have  it,  the  Foundling  Hospital 
drew  the  right  number.  You  can  still  see  the 
"  March  "  any  Sunday  morning  in  the  Hospital, 
which  is  thrown  open  to  visitors  after  morning 
service.  It  was  Hogarth's  idea  to  exhibit  picftures 
there  for  the  good  of  the  institution,  and  in 
George  II. 's  time  it  became  fashionable  to  lounge 
away  a  morning  at  the  Foundling.  Some  think  this 
fashion  was,  indired;ly,  the  beginning  of  the  Royal 
Academy. 

The  "  Marriage  a  la  Mode,"  in  the  National 
Gallery,  another  series  of  six  pictures,  is  Hogarth's 
best-known  work.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  poor 
man  of  noble  birth  marrying  for  money  and  not  for 
love,  and  the  subsequent  misfortunes  of  the  couple. 
The  first  picture  is  the  signing  of  the  marriage  con- 
tra6l  in  the  house  of  the  bridegroom's  father,  the 
gouty  Earl.   You  see  the  coronets  on  the  furniture. 

244 


1 


HOGARTH 

The  pretty  bride,  an  alderman's  daughter,  takes 
Httle  interest  in  the  poor  stupid  lord,  her  bride- 
groom, in  his  red-heeled  shoes.  On  the  walls,  as  in 
so  many  of  Hogarth's  interiors,  are  piftures,  intended 
to  illustrate  the  subject  of  which  he  treats.  Here 
are  Judith,  who  slew  Holofernes  ;  David  and  the 
giant  Goliath  ;  Pharoah  in  the  Red  Sea,  and  many 
others.  The  next  pic^ture  is  the  young  couple's 
drawing-room,  copied  from  the  one  still  existing  at 
5,  Arlington  Street,  then  the  house  of  the  Minister 
of  George  II.,  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  The  clock  over 
the  mantelpiece  points  to  half-past  twelve,  but  they 
are  still  at  breakfast,  my  lady  with  her  hair  undressed, 
my  lord  just  home  from  an  ill-spent  night.  The 
house-steward,  unable  to  gain  their  attention  to  his 
unpaid  bills,  is  leaving  the  room.  And  so  we  pass 
through  a  scene  showing  my  lord's  ill  associates  to 
one  where  my  lady  sits  at  her  toilet  in  a  fine  bed- 
room. Her  tall  bed,  filling  one  alcove,  bears  a 
coronet,  her  mirror  is  topped  by  another  ;  by  now 
she  is  a  Countess.  The  hairdresser  is  busy  with  her 
hair,  and  her  baby's  coral  is  tied  to  her  chair. 
Around  her,  visitors  are  grouped  in  a  wide  halt- 
circle,  drinking  chocolate,  spouting  poems,  singing, 
playing  the  flute.  The  only  lady  present  wears  a 
"  Pamela  "  hat  of  the  period,  made  of  straw  and  tied 
under  her  chin  ;  one  of  the  men  has  a  tan  hanging 
from  his  wrist  ;  liad  it  been  winter,  he  would  have 
had  a   muff;  another  has  his  hair  tied   up  in  curl- 

245 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

papers.  All  the  whims  and  fashions  of  the  time  of 
George  II.  are  here  seen,  satirized,  and  introduced 
skilfully  into  the  story.  The  end  now  comes  quickly. 
The  Countess  is  unfaithful  to  her  husband,  and  is 
obliged  to  fly  to  her  old  home  in  the  City.  Through 
the  windows  you  can  see  old  London  Bridge,  on 
which  houses  then  stood.  The  poor  foolish  heroine 
has  poisoned  herself ;  the  nurse  holds  her  baby-girl 
up  to  her  for  her  last  kiss.  It  is  a  horrible  story  of 
tolly  and  stupidity  ;  we  are  glad  there  is  no  baby- 
son  to  carry  on  the  dishonoured  name. 

Hogarth  was  a  man  of  many  friends.  Johnson's 
Mrs.  Thrale  says:  "Dear  Mr.  Hogarth  used  to 
give  me,  as  a  girl,  odd,  particular  directions  about 
dress,  dancing,  and  other  matters."  He  knew  the 
three  first  great  English  novelists,  Goldsmith,  Field- 
ing, and  Richardson,  but,  best  of  all,  he  knew  the 
a6tor  David  Garrick.  He  painted  Garrick  once 
with  his  pretty  Austrian  wife,  the  dancer  Violetta. 
He  has  chosen  a  charming  comedy  pose.  From 
behind  his  chair  the  wife  tries  to  steal  away  the 
quill  pen  with  which  her  husband  is  busy  writing 
a  prologue  to  some  play.  This  pi6ture  is  now  in 
the  King's  Collection  at  Windsor.  In  the  National 
Gallery  is  a  sketch  from  life,  the  beautiful  "  Shrimp 
Girl,"  famous  for  its  limpid  colourint^. 

Hogarth's  last  series  of  pictures,  "  The  EleClion," 
is,  like  "  The  Rake,"  to  be  seen  in  the  Soane 
Museum.    It  consists  of  four  large  paintings,  which 

246 


HOGARTH 

once  belonged  to  Garrick.  They  are  full  of  incident, 
from  the  first  scene  at  the  electioneering  banquet 
to  the  final  chairing  of  the  Members.  Three  are 
out-of-door  scenes,  with  delightful  backgrounds  of 
eighteenth-century  country-town  buildings  under 
summer  skies,  enlivened  by  leafy  trees. 

Hogarth  died  in  his  little  country  house  at  Chis- 
wick  after  only  a  few  hours'  illness.  His  wife  sur- 
vived him  for  many  years,  and  was  buried  by  his 
side  in  Chiswick  Churchyard. 

In  his  own  day  Hogarth's  work  received  scanty 
appreciation.  People  disliked  his  subjerts.  He 
showed  them  the  seamy  side  of  life,  and  there  was 
none  of  the  glamour  which  we,  coming  nearly  two 
hundred  years  later,  find  in  this  faithtul  record  of 
how  our  ancestors  lived,  what  clothes  they  wore, 
and  how  they  furnished  their  rooms.  Their  con- 
temporaries found  little  to  interest  them  in  the 
sordid  quarrel  of  the  young  couple  in  the  "  Mar- 
riatre  a  la  Mode,"  where  we  are  never  tired  of 
studying  all  the  carefully  painted  indications  ot  the 
fashion  of  the  day.  His  style,  too,  did  not  please 
them,  for  the  middle  eighteenth  century  loved  the 
so-called  "  grand  style  "  of  those  late  Italian  masters 
who  followed  Titian  a  very  long  way  off.  Nobody 
saw  that  Hogarth  was  realizing  the  Italian  tradition 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  painting  what  he 
saw  of  interest  in  the  world  around  him,  which 
was  no  more  and  no  less  than  Titian  liad  done  in 

247 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

his  own  \'^cnice  long  before.  Hogarth  went  even 
farther  back  than  Titian,  for  he  was  able  to  repre- 
sent action  in  his  pictures  superlatively  well,  and 
he  told  his  story  through  movement,  just  as  Giotto 
had  done.  This  very  fadt  alienated  them  too.  The 
eighteenth  century  loved  dignity,  and  it  found 
Hogarth's  pictures,  with  their  eager,  hurrying 
crowds,  greatly  wanting  in  that  quality. 

People  are  fond  of  saying  that  Hogarth  is  like 
the  Dutch  artists,  such  as  de  Hooch  ;  but  the 
difference  between  them  is  enormous.  De  Hooch 
painted  a  room  and  the  people  in  it,  but  he  chose 
his  subje6ts  in  order  to  make  a  beautiful  picture  ; 
the  living  people  were  only  part  of  the  exquisite 
scheme  of  colour.  Hogarth,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
so  intensely  interested  in  his  men  and  women  that 
he  overcrowds  his  canvas,  forcing  us  to  learn  all 
about  them,  often  spoiling  in  that  way  the  artistic 
completeness  of  his  work.  Yet  through  it  all  he 
had  the  true  artist's  eye.  He  tells  us  himself  that 
he  never  trusted  to  a  model  ;  he  trained  himself  to 
observe,  to  copy  from  memory,  and  then  to  use 
freely  in  his  picture  whatever  he  had  seen  in  the 
daily  pageant  of  life.  Life  he  loved,  and  when  he 
painted  pictures  with  morals  he  did  not  want  to 
frighten  us  by  showing  us  ugly  things,  but  to 
interest  us  by  giving  us  everything  he  had  himself 
seen  ;  ugly  or  beautiful,  it  mattered  not,  so  long 
only  as  it  was  true. 

248 


CHAPTER  II 

A   Little  Group  of  Late  Italian    Painters. 

While  Hogarth  was  busy  painting  and  engraving 
in  London,  far  away  in  Venice  a  group  of  artists 
were  working,  content  like  him  to  solve  their  own 
problems  ;  real  living  men,  not  influenced  over- 
much by  the  mighty  past  of  their  own  city,  nor  by 
the  rococo  lightness  that  marked  the  work  of  the 
French  painters  of  that  date.  I  will  tell  you  a  little 
about  four  of  this  group,  Tiepolo,  Canaletto,  Longhi, 
and  Guardi  ;  but  of  the  four,  Longhi  (1702-1768) 
has  the  most  in  common  with  Hogarth,  although 
the  Englishman  is  by  far  the  greater  artist.  Longhi 
was  a  goldsmith's  son,  and  began  his  artist's  life  by 
designing  pieces  of  plate.  In  the  National  Gallery 
you  will  see  two  interesting  pi(^l:ures  by  him,  taken 
straight  from  the  daily  life  of  the  ladies  of  fashion 
in  the  Venice  of  his  day.  In  one  a  pretty  lady  in 
the  full  white  satin  skirt,  black  mantilla,  and  three- 
cornered  hat  of  the  period  gives  her  hand  coquet- 
tishly  to  the  old  fortune-telling  witch  in  a  tawny 
coat,  while  her  attendant  gentleman  in  his  white 
"  poke-face  "  mask  and  ample  cloak  lurks  behind, 
anxious  to  glean  her  secrets.   The  other  shows  us  a 

249 


A  LITTLE  GROUP  OF 

group  of  fashionable  \^enctians  visiting  a  menagerie. 
In  the  foreground  a  formidable  rhinoceros  is 
solemnly  chumping  straw  ;  behind  the  wooden 
barrier  sit  five  people,  men  and  women  alike  in 
black,  three-cornered  hats,  the  men  all  masked,  one 
of  the  ladies  in  a  little  round  black  mask.  The 
paintings  are  charming  in  colour,  and  in  the  picture 
they  give  of  the  daily  life  of  Venice  ;  they  seem  to 
be  illustrations  of  Browning's  lines  : 

"  Did  young  people  take  their  pleasure  when  the  sea  was  warm 
in  May  ? 
Balls  and  masks  begun  at  midnight,  burning  ever  to  midday, 
When  they  made  up  fresh  adventures  for  the  morrow,  do  you 
say  r" 

Tiepolo  (1696- 1 770)  was  a  painter  of  real  genius 
in  his  way,  and  his  work  is  the  last  flame  of  that 
fire  which,  in  the  days  of  Veronese,  burned  so 
brightly  in  Venice.  Yet  he  was  all  himself  in  his 
work  too,  as  you  can  see  even  from  the  two  small 
sketches  by  him  in  the  National  Gallery.  One  is 
"  The  Deposition  from  the  Cross,"  where,  in  the 
small  space  covered,  you  are  given  a  great  im- 
pression of  height  and  grace.  The  figures  are  noble, 
and  the  blue  sky  with  smoky  clouds,  half  dimming 
its  radiance,  is  very  characteristic  of  the  painter. 
Another  is  a  sketch  for  a  royal  marriage  picliture, 
the  Emperor  Barbarossa  and  Beatrix  of  Burgundy 
kneeling  to  receive  the  episcopal  blessing.  The 
picture  is  finely  planned  :  courtiers  and  pages  throng 

250 


LATE  ITALIAN  PAINTERS 

the  altar-steps,  musicians  play  high  up  under  an 
arch  in  the  background,  and  a  flag  hangs  its  long 
folds  of  a  peculiarly  beautiful  yellow  which  Tiepolo 
often  used.  He  painted  principally  altar-pieces  for 
Venetian  churches,  but  he  also  decorated  ceilings 
superbly.  One  such  ceiling  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
rococo  palace  of  the  Prince-Bishops  at  Wiirzburg, 
the  ceiling  of  the  great  entrance-hall.  You  mount 
the  fine  staircase,  and  over  you  stretch  the  great 
painted  figures,  moving  easily  in  delicate,  bright 
colours,  fresh  and  captivating,  foreshortened  happily 
in  every  conceivable  manner.  Tiepolo  was  a  very 
rapid  worker,  his  pictures  were  much  sought  after, 
and  Charles  III.  of  Spain  sent  for  him  to  decorate 
the  royal  palace  of  Madrid  with  frescoes.  He  was 
received  with  every  possible  honour,  lived  eight 
years  there,  and  died,  the  best  designer  and  colourist 
of  his  day. 

The  other  two  painters  in  this  little  group  were 
really  landscape-painters,  who  devoted  themselves 
to  all  the  changing  aspects  of  their  native  city, 
introducing  into  their  work  many  little  figures  to 
give  interest  to  the  scenes. 

Canaletto  (i  697-1 768)  was  a  man  of  an  original 
mind,  who,  beginning  life  as  a  scene-painter,  went 
to  Rome  to  study  architectural  drawing  there.  On 
his  return  home,  he  painted  \'enetian  landscapes, 
allowing  himself  to  take  liberties  with  the  buildings, 
which    he    arranged    as    he    thought    best    for   his 

251 


A  LITTLE  GROUP  OF 

pictures.  The  result  is  a  sumptuous  Venice,  its 
palaces,  squares  and  bridges  rising  majestically 
from  the  sea,  as  in  some  beautiful  dream.  You  may 
study  many  examples  of  his  work  in  the  National 
Gallery,  and  walk  in  imagination  in  ^^enice  itself, 
see  the  deep  blue  vault  of  the  sky  above  the  great 
square  of  San  Marco  ;  the  new  buildings,  their 
solid  blocks  of  stone  white  in  the  sunshine  ;  the 
gay  awnings  in  front  of  ancient  windows  ;  the  huge 
ships  of  hay  unloading  at  the  wharves.  Ships  of  all 
kinds  he  loved  to  paint  ;  gala  barges  and  sailing- 
vessels,  gondolas  and  fishing-boats,  he  observed  them 
all  ;  and  everywhere  he  painted  people,  fit  inhabi- 
tants of  such  charming  surroundings,  crossing  the 
squares,  standing  in  groups  to  chat,  the  ladies  in 
full  hoops,  the  gallants  gracefully  balanced  on  their 
thin  legs  beside  them  ;  some  of  these  figures  were 
painted  by  Tiepolo,  they  say.  All  the  pleasant, 
stately  life  of  Venice  is  there  in  this  incomparable 
setting. 

Canaletto  came  twice  to  England,  and  he  has 
painted  for  us  a  London  as  beautiful  in  its  way  as 
his  Venice.  The  National  Gallery  has  two  of  his 
English  piftures,  "  The  Rotunda  at  Ranelagh," 
dated  1754,  showing  the  world  of  fashion  at  that 
place  of  amusement  walking  about  to  the  strains  of 
the  orchestra  ;  and  an  earlier  pi(5f:ure,  "  A  View 
from  Eton  College,"  painted  just  about  the  time 
that  Gray  wrote  his  Ode  on  the  same  subjedl. 

252 


^J 


LATE  ITALIAN  PAINTERS 

Guardi  (17 12-1793)  was  the  brother-in-law  of 
Tiepolo,  and  the  pupil  of  Canaletto.  He  is  said  to 
have  imitated  his  master,  but  his  work,  on  a  smaller 
scale,  has  far  more  brilliancy,  and  gives  a  far  greater 
sense  of  atmosphere.  He,  too,  paints  Venice,  but  it 
is  a  city  more  fairy-like  in  beauty,  in  which  the 
buildings  seem  not  to  have  been  ererted  by  human 
hands,  but  by  some  happy,  airy  miracle.  His  pictures 
shimmer  in  blue  and  pearl-colour,  even  the  white 
shirts  of  his  tisher-folk,  busy  with  their  nets,  have  a 
peculiar  radiance,  and,  in  the  universal  heat,  the  eye 
rejoices  in  the  masts  of  the  fishing-boats,  crossing 
the  sky  with  their  relieving  blackness.  Black,  too, 
are  the  gondolas,  and  the  heavy  shadow^s  under  the 
archways  and  colonnades,  which  give  glimpses  be- 
yond of  sunflooded  courtyards.  He  painted  his 
figures  more  carefully  even  than  Canaletto,  and  dis- 
posed beautifully  of  his  crowd  of  sightseers,  or 
devout  \\*netians  walking  in  procession  on  their 
way  to  some  high  church  solemnity :  as  his  people 
pass  on  their  way,  or  stop  and  talk  in  little  groups, 
they  seem  to  sparkle  in  the  sunshine,  and  some 
bright  reflection  from  their  happy,  animated  lives 
falls  upon  us  whilst  we  stand  to  watch  them. 


253 


CHAPTER  III 

Joshua  Reynolds  (1723-1792). 

In  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  we  find  eminently  the  two 
great  characteristics  of  English  painting  :  its  modera- 
tion and  its  sincere  love  of  beauty. 

Moderation  is  that  quality  which  makes  artists 
satisfied  to  paint  a  picture  under  the  impulse  of  a 
single  idea,  and  then,  without  further  effort,  to  rest 
content.  You  will  find  this  peace-giving  quality  in 
all  Reynolds'  work.  It  may  make  you  say,  "  These 
ladies  of  his  lived  such  quiet  lives,  this  repose  of 
expression  was  natural  to  them."  That  is,  of  course, 
true;  but  your  peace  of  mind  in  looking  at  them 
comes  as  well  from  the  artist's  single-mindedness ; 
he  saw  what  he  wanted  to  express,  and  he  strove  for 
that  alone. 

The  second  characteristic  includes  the  love  of 
colour,  for  only  with  its  help  can  this  love  of 
beauty  be  fully  expressed.  Here  you  will  notice  that 
Reynolds'  colour  has  faded,  but  it  is  always  good. 
That  it  has  faded  is  almost  an  added  charm  :  his 
elderly  ladies  are  really  ageing,  you  love  them  for 
the  witty,  graceful  way  they  allow  the  change  :  his 
children  arc  a  little  pallid,  but  you  feel  that  it  is 

254 


JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

only  the  close  air  of  the  studio;  they  will  recover 
their  roses  out  there  in  their  father's  park.  His  people 
are  beautiful  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  and 
the  consciousness  of  their  beauty  quickens  your 
pleasure  as  you  look. 

Reynolds  was  a  Devonshire  man,  the  son  of  a 
clergyman,  master  of  the  Grammar  School  at 
Plympton.  His  father  was  a  man  of  an  unworldly 
and  gentle  character,  who  brought  up  a  large 
family  on  very  small  means.  Joshua  was  the  seventh 
child,  and  was  educated  at  his  father's  school  until,  at 
the  age  of  seventeen,  having  shown  promise  as  an 
artist,  he  was  sent  to  London  to  serve  his  appren- 
ticeship under  the  painter  Hudson  (i 701-1779), 
another  Devonshire  man,  whose  portraits  of 
George  H.  and  of  the  composer  Handel  are  to 
be  seen  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Reynolds' 
sister,  Mary,  who  had  married  a  solicitor,  Mr. 
Palmer,  helped  to  pay  the  money  required  by 
Hudson,  a  large  sum,  equal  to  the  poor  school- 
master's salary  for  a  year.  In  London  the  young 
pupil  was  set  to  copy  late  Italian  masters  of  an  un- 
profitable kind,  and  only  one  small  adventure  befell 
him,  which  forms  a  curious  link  with  the  past.  He 
saw,  in  the  auction-room.  Pope,  the  poet  of  Queen 
Anne's  reign,  then  a  man  of  over  fifty,  and  not  long 
before  his  death.  The  young  artist  was  proud  to 
touch  his  hand,  that  hand  which,  years  before,  had 
written  the  immortal  "  Rape  of  the  Lock."  Reynolds 

255 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

was  to  live  till  George  III.  had  been  over  thirty 
years  on  the  throne,  and  was  himself  to  give  his 
hand  in  honoured  friendship  to  all  the  greatest  men 
of  that  long  Georgian  period;  he  painted  (you  can 
see  the  picture  in  the  National  Gallery)  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  afterwards  George  IV. ;  it  is  a  long  vista, 
and  Reynolds's  figure  passes  down  it  with  dignity. 

Reynolds  did  not  stay  the  full  four  years  of  his 
apprenticeship  in  Hudson's  studio  ;  he  returned  to 
Devonshire  and  painted  many  portraits  in  his  native 
county.  At  Lord  Edgecumbe's  house  he  made  his 
first  notable  friend,  Commodore  Keppel,  later  the 
well-known  Admiral,  in  whose  ship  Reynolds  sailed 
for  Lisbon,  arriving  in  time  at  Rome,  where  he 
spent  two  years  to  his  own  "  measureless  content," 
as  he  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  home.  He  worked 
the  whole  of  this  time,  copying  especially  the 
pictures  of  Titian,  Raphael,  and  Rembrandt,  and 
making  notes  on  everything  he  saw.  From  these 
notes  and  from  his  later  writings  we  learn  how  un- 
bounded was  his  admiration  for  the  great  Michel- 
angelo. Years  after,  when  he  revisited  Italy,  he  was 
at  first  disappointed  not  to  recapture  his  early  joy 
in  the  colouring  of  these  old  masters,  and  he  made 
the  curious  discovery  that  he  missed  the  contrast 
with  the  white  paper  of  his  notebooks,  which  had 
heightened  the  efTeft  of  the  brilliant  pictures  he  had 
so  much  admired  as  he  first  stood,  a  young  man, 
scribbling  in  those  galleries.   From  this  journey  he 

256 


JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

brought  back  many  sketches  from  famous  pictures; 
one  from  Rubens'  "  Saint  Cecilia,"  for  example,  in 
which  his  wife,  Plelena  Fourment,  poses  as  the 
Saint,  is  said  to  have  suggested  Reynolds's  beauti- 
ful "  Mrs.  Sheridan  as  Sanit  Cecilia."  Among  the 
English  painters  staying  in  Rome  at  the  time  was 
the  landscape-painter,  Richard  Wilson,  of  whom 
you  will  hear  later;  and  Reynolds  learnt  to  know 
many  travelling  Englishmen  whom  he  later  num- 
bered among  his  friends  and  patrons.  Of  the  old 
masters  whose  work  attracted  him  there,  he  only 
mentions  Massaccio,  whose  frescoes  were  to  fascinate 
Walpole's  protege,  the  engraver.  Patch,  so  much, 
that  he  spent  his  time  in  Rome  copying  them  for 
his  employer. 

In  1752  Reynolds  took  rooms  in  S.  Martin's 
Lane,  and  his  youngest  sister,  Frances,  came  to  look 
after  him.  His  first  portrait  painted  in  London  was 
that  of  Captain  Keppel,  who  sat  to  him  ten  times. 
The  success  of  this  pi6ture  brought  him  many 
patrons.  Seven  years  later  came  his  busiest  year, 
when  he  painted  no  less  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty-six  portraits.  The  list  seems  endless  of  those 
who  during  that  time  came  to  him  to  be  painted, 
and  among  his  sitters  we  read  of  three  royal  Dukes, 
many  Duchesses  and  other  fine  ladies,  including 
Lady  Coventry  and  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton,  the 
Irish  Miss  Gunnings,  whose  beauty  drew  such 
crowds,  we  are  told,  that  one  of  them  had  to  call 

257  s 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

for  help  to  the  officers  of  the  Guard,  which   made 
their  admirers  stare  the  more. 

One  pifture  of  this  period  you  can  see  in  the 
National  Gallery — the  delicately  perfect  Anne, 
Countess  of  Albemarle,  the  mother  of  Captain 
Keppel.  This  middle-aged  lady,  in  her  gown  of 
blue  and  white  brocade,  her  hood  drawn  comfort- 
ably over  her  head,  quietly  tatting  in  her  red  chair, 
has  an  air  of  pleasant  dignity  delightful  to  see,  and 
the  pifture  is  as  charming  as  any  of  Reynolds's  lovely 
women  and  happy  young  mothers. 

It  was,  of  course,  impossible  for  Reynolds  to  do 
all  his  own  draperies  and  backgrounds  in  so  many 
rapidly  painted  pictures.  He  employed,  therefore, 
"  drapery  men,"  who  did  these  parts  under  his 
dire6tion  and  from  his  sketches,  whilst  he  bestowed 
the  last  magical  touches  on  the  finished  portraits. 

He  has  left  many  pocket-books,  in  which  his 
social  engagements  are  carefully  noted  down,  and 
we  see  how  full  his  life  was,  the  daylight  time  filled 
with  sittings,  his  evenings  with  parties  and  dinners 
of  all  kinds.  His  three  great  friends  were  Garrick, 
Goldsmith,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  whom  we  seem  to 
know  best  of  all  from  Boswell's  famous  "  Life."  In 
that  "  Life "  Reynolds  and  his  sister,  Johnson's 
"  dearest  dear,"  recur  again  and  again.  Miss  Rey- 
nolds was  a  special  favourite  with  the  great  man 
because  she  gave  her  visitors  tea  three  times  a  day, 
and  Johnson  was  an  insatiable  tea-drinker.  Hogarth 

258 


JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

and  Reynolds  were  never  friends  ;  their  methods 
and  ideals  in  art  were  too  different. 

The  year  of  King  George  III.'s  accession,  in  1760, 
Reynolds  went  to  live  in  Leicester  Square,  which 
was  then  called  Leicester  Fields.  His  house  had 
belonged  to  the  father  of  the  landscape-painter, 
George  Morland,  of  whom  you  will  hear  later. 
This  year  you  must  remember  as  the  first  when  a 
public  exhibition  of  pictures  was  held  in  London. 
By  the  next  year  the  artists  had  already  quarrelled 
among  themselves,  and  two  separate  exhibitions 
were  opened.  Reynolds  sent  his  work  to  the 
society  exhibiting  in  Spring  Gardens.  His  most 
interesting  pi6ture  was  the  portrait  of  Lawrence 
Sterne,  author  of  "  Tristram  Shandy,"  whose  sly, 
humorous  face  under  the  slightly  crooked  wig  you 
perhaps  know  from  engravings.  Sterne  declared  that 
Reynolds  gave  him  the  portrait,  but  this  is  not 
likely,  as  the  painter  is  hardly  ever  known  to  have 
painted  for  love. 

The  young  King  married  Princess  Charlotte  of 
Mecklenburg-Strelitz  in  1761,  and  Reynolds  was 
kept  busy  painting  the  fine  folk  who  came  to  town 
for  the  royal  marriage.  He  painted  three  of  the 
bridesmaids,  among  them  the  Lady  Sarah  Lennox, 
who,  it  is  said,  had  narrowly  escaped  being  the 
royal  bride  herself  George  HI.  had  certainly  taken 
much  interest  in  the  charming  girl,  who  is  painted 
leaning  from  a  window  of  Holland  House  talking 

259 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

to  Lady  Susan  Strangways,  who  holds  a  dove  in  her 
hand.  Lady  Sarah's  nephew,  Charles  Fox,  after- 
wards the  famous  Whig  statesman,  is  urging  Lady 
Susan  to  go  into  the  house  to  rehearse  a  play  they 
were  to  aft  together.  The  picture  has  a  certain  fresh 
charm,  but  the  three  figures  do  not  give  that  feeling 
of  dramatic  unity  which  was  so  strong  in  Reynolds's 
later  groups.  The  same  year  he  painted  Horace 
Walpole,  that  prince  of  letter-writers,  with  a  group 
of  friends,  among  them  George  Selwyn,  the  wit.  It 
is  curious  to  note  that,  though  Reynolds  had 
painted  Walpole  before,  his  sitter  rarely  gave  him 
any  but  the  most  half-hearted  praise. 

In  Hertford  House  is  the  celebrated  picture  of 
Nelly  O'Brien,  the  actress,  perhaps  Reynolds's 
masterpiece.  She  sits  nursing  her  little  dog  with  a 
fine  air  of  colleftedness,  her  hat  casting  a  shadow 
over  the  upper  part  of  her  face.  Reynolds  has  here 
set  himself  the  same  problem  so  successfully  solved 
by  Rubens  in  his  "  Chapeau  de  Faille,"  a  pi6ture 
which  the  English  painter  did  not  himself  see  till 
many  years  later.  When  he  did  examine  it,  he 
praised  it  heartily  for  the  transparency  of  its  colour 
— "  clear  as  if  seen  in  the  open  air  " — and  he  noted 
the  hat  and  feathers  of  the  sitter,  "  so  airily  put  on." 
Another  charming  picture  of  this  period  is  Miss 
Horneck,  a  Devonshire  friend,  playfully  called  the 
"  Jessamy  Bride."  The  girl  is  sitting  on  the  floor, 
Persian    fashion,    cross-legged   on   a   cushion  ;  she 

260 


^. 


JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

wears  a  turban,  under  which  lier  pretty  English 
face,  with  its  slightly  narrowed  eyes,  looks  out  very 
winningly. 

Sir  Joshua  never  married,  and  amongst  all  his 
friends  only  one  lady  has  ever  had  her  name  coupled 
with  his.  Miss  Angelica  Kauffmann,  a  Swiss  artist, 
much  praised  at  the  time  for  her  easy,  graceful 
paintings.  You  may  read  her  story  in  Miss 
Thackeray's  "  Miss  Angel."  Another  warm  friend 
was  Mrs.  Thrale  of  Streatham,  Johnson's  constant 
admirer.  She  was  a  kindly,  witty  woman,  with  a 
wealthy  husband,  a  brewer.  By  her  wish  Sir 
Joshua  painted  a  series  of  portraits  of  all  those 
whom  she  loved  best  to  entertain  at  her  villa. 
Among  these  were  Goldsmith,  Garrick,  Dr.  Burney 
(the  musician,  and  the  father  of  Miss  Burney  of 
"Evelina"  fame).  Dr.  Johnson,  and  Sir  Joshua's 
pi6lure  of  himself,  with  his  familiar  ear-trumpet — 
he  had  been  deaf  ever  since  his  stay  in  Italy.  This 
series  is  now  scattered,  but  the  memory  of  the 
originals  is  still  green,  and  their  names  raise  echoes 
of  many  happy  conversations  round  Mrs.  Thrale's 
table. 

In  the  National  Gallery  you  can  see  "  Lady 
Cockburn  and  her  Children,"  one  of  the  best- 
preserved  of  all  Sir  Joshua's  pi(^hires.  Tlie  lady 
plays  with  her  three  round-limbed  boys,  her  orange- 
yellow  dress  in  fine  harmony  with  the  red  of  the 
fluttering    curtain    and    the   gaudy   feathers    of    the 

261 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

splendid,  rather  shapeless  macaw.  It  is  a  study  in 
warm,  tawny  colour,  and  is  signed  and  dated  1775 
in  letters  like  embroidery  on  the  lady's  dress,  just 
so,  when  he  painted  Mrs.  Siddons,  the  great  adtress, 
as  the  "  Tragic  Muse,"  in  a  pi(5ture  now  in  the 
Dulwich  Gallery,  he  placed  his  name  on  her  gar- 
ment, because,  as  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  he  could 
not  resist  the  opportunity  of  going  down  in  this 
way  to  posterity.  The  picture  of  Mrs.  Siddons  is  a 
very  fine  one,  and  she  always  said  that  she  had 
herself  assumed  the  magnificent  pose.  Reynolds, 
on  the  other  hand,  admitted  that  he  had  taken  the 
idea  from  the  "Isaiah"  of  Michelangelo  in  the 
Sistine  Chapel.   Both  statements  may  be  reconciled. 

The  pretty  "  Infant  Samuel "  in  the  National 
Gallery  has  always  been  very  popular  ;  and  much 
admiration  was  excited  at  the  time  by  the  pid:ures 
designed  for  the  west  window  of  New  College 
Chapel,  Oxford,  the  "Nativity,"  with  the  A'irtues 
below.  Mrs.  Sheridan,  his  old  favourite,  sat  for 
Charity.  Reynolds  was  disappointed  with  their 
effe(^t  as  glass-paintings,  but  when  lit  up  by  the 
glow  of  the  setting  sun  they  will  always  remain 
fine  examples  of  his  art. 

A  few  years  later  Reynolds  painted  Horace 
Walpole's  three  nieces,  the  Ladies  Waldcgrave, 
sitting  at  their  work-table,  bending  their  pretty 
heads  over  their  embroidery.  No  one  would  guess 
to  look  at  them  that  they  had  all  been  crossed  in 

262 


JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

love.  Perhaps  their  disappointments  had  not  cut 
deep.    Their  uncle  tells  us  that  they  all  married  later. 

In  1786  Reynolds  painted  the  *' Lord  Heath- 
field  "  of  the  National  Gallery,  that  splendid,  heroic 
portrait  of  the  conqueror  of  Gihraltar,  holding  the 
big  key  of  the  fortress  in  his  hand.  Another  well- 
known  pirture  of  the  same  year  in  the  same  place  is 
the  so-called  "  Cherub-Heads,"  all  pictures  of  the 
same  little  girl,  Frances  Gordon,  then  just  four 
years  old. 

But  Reynolds's  long  career  was  drawing  to  a 
close.  In  1789  his  eyesight  began  to  fail,  and  though 
he  did  not  become  quite  blind,  he  never  painted 
again,  and,  three  years  later,  died,  as  he  had  lived, 
with  tranquil  courage. 

As  I  said  in  the  beginning,  Reynolds  shone 
before  all  things  in  his  colouring.  His  drawing 
was  sometimes  weak,  but  he  always  knew  how  to 
cover  this  defeat  by  his  colour.  This  makes  it  all 
the  sadder  that  his  paint  has  always  had  a  tendency 
to  fade.  Too  often  his  pictures  have  been  restored  ; 
but  when  you  are  fortunate  enough  to  see  an  un- 
touched one,  you  will  recognize  that  a  faded  Sir 
Joshua  is  better  than  a  restored  one. 

Sir  Joshua  was  the  first  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  and  every  other  year  he  delivered,  as  one 
of  his  official  duties,  a  discourse  to  the  students. 
Tlie  earlier  discourses  are  supposed  to  have  re- 
ceived a  final  polish  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Johnson, 

263 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

hut  the  ideas  are  entirely  those  of  Reynolds,  and 
if  he  there  holds  up  a  higher  ideal  than  he  always 
attained  in  his  work,  they  are  none  the  less  valuable 
as  criticisms  of  his  art.  The  last  discourse  is  especially 
interesting,  as  it  was  mainly  concerned  with  Michel- 
angelo. It  ends  with  the  words  :  "  I  feel  a  self- 
congratulation  in  knowing  myself  capable  of  such 
sensations  as  he  intended  to  excite.  I  refleft  that 
this  discourse  bears  testimony  to  that  truly  divine 
man,  and  I  should  desire  that  the  last  words  which 
I  should  pronounce  in  this  Academy  might  be  the 
name  of  Michelangelo." 

Reynolds  has  created  a  type  of  Englishwoman 
which  makes  us  proud  of  our  nation.  His  little 
children  are  the  first  ever  dressed  as  children. 
Velasquez's  children  are  dressed  exactly  like  their 
elders ;  so,  too,  were  the  children  of  Hals  and 
Van  Dyck.  It  was  Reynolds  who  invented  baby- 
frocks,  and  set  the  fashion  to  all  those  who  fol- 
lowed him.  Best  of  all,  we  are  told,  he  loved  to 
paint  the  dirty  children  from  the  slums  behind 
Leicester  Square  —  "his  little  maggots,"  as  he 
laughingly  called  them.  In  his  picture,  "  Cupid 
as  Linkman,"  we  see  just  such  a  child,  a  dark- 
haired  cherub  of  a  gutter-boy,  with  roguish  wings 
sprouting  from  his  old  coat,  and  in  his  hand  the 
torch,  which  he  used,  like  his  namesake,  to  show 
the  ladies  their  way  home  through  the  unlighted 
streets. 

264 


JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

We  must  not,  however,  forget  that,  while  Rey- 
nolds painted  the  women  and  children  ot  England 
with  a  charm  all  his  own,  he  painted,  too,  perfe(!:t 
men-portraits — scholars  and  statesmen,  soldiers  and 
sailors,  lawyers  and  bishops,  all  came  to  him  to  be 
painted,  and  we  see  them  now  in  their  portraits  as 
they  were  in  life,  with  their  various  chara(^teristics 
of  heart  and  mind.  He  shows  us  as  in  a  mirror  the 
vast,  many-coloured  life  of  the  latter  halt  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  without  the  work  of  his 
tireless  brush,  we,  who  love  to  realize  the  past  by 
in  some  measure  reconstru(^ting  it,  should  be  poor 
indeed. 


265 


CHAPTER  IV 

Gainsborough   (1727-1788). 

Thomas  Gainsborough  was  a  Suffolk  man,  the 
son  of  a  woollen  manufafturer,  a  busy,  genial  man, 
who  travelled  for  the  sake  of  his  business  in  France 
and  Holland.  He  introduced  the  "  shroud  "  trade 
into  his  part  of  the  world,  for  in  those  days  it  was 
settled  by  law  that  everybody  must  be  buried  in 
wool  in  order  to  encourage  the  wool-trade,  and  the 
Parish  Registers  duly  noted  when  this  was  done. 
Thomas  was  the  youngest  of  his  nine  children. 
Two  of  the  brothers  were  inventors,  and  one  of 
them  is  said  to  have  helped  Watts  of  steam-engine 
fame.  Thomas  was  sent  to  the  Grammar  School  of 
his  native  town  of  Sudbury,  kept  by  his  uncle,  and 
in  his  free  hours  sketched  from  nature,  copying 
faithfully  every  clump  of  trees  and  every  hedgerow 
that  caught  his  fancy.  Before  he  was  fifteen  he 
went  to  London  and  was  apprenticed  to  Gravelot,  a 
clever  French  engraver,  from  whom  Gainsborough 
learnt  much.  He  went  to  the  School  of  Art  in 
S.  Martin's  Lane  too,  and  painted  portraits  and  land- 
scapes for  small  fees.  But,  before  he  was  twenty,  he 
was  home  in  Suffolk  again,  and  married  to  a  bcauti- 

Z66 


GAINSBOROUGH 

ful  young  girl  of  eighteen,  who,  luckily,  had  a 
small  fortune  of  her  own.  The  young  couple  took 
a  little  house  in  Ipswich,  and  to  this  period  belongs 
the  landscape,  called  "  Gainsborough's  Forest,"  in 
the  National  Gallery,  a  picture  of  the  woods  of 
Connard,  a  Suffolk  village,  with  in  the  foreground, 
country-folk,  at  their  work  or  resting,  and  behind  a 
church  seen  through  the  trees. 

Gainsborough  made  friends  easily,  and  he  had 
many  commissions  to  paint  portraits  for  the  neigh- 
bouring families.  He  decorated  the  panels  on  their 
walls  too,  and  he  introduced,  we  are  told,  the  por- 
traits of  his  two  little  daughters,  chasing  a  butter- 
fly, into  one  of  these  panels.  Their  names  were 
Margaret  and  Mary,  and  the  same  subje(^t  is  treated 
in  a  pi(5lure  now  in  the  National  Gallery.  The  two 
little  maids  are  standing  hand  in  hand  under  leafy 
trees.  The  younger  stretches  out  her  hand  to  catch 
the  butterfly  which  just  eludes  her.  Their  quaint, 
long  dresses  are  in  delicate  shades  of  pale  yellow  and 
green  ;  in  the  corner  is  a  tall,  handsome  thistle.  I 
have  seen  a  drawing  of  Mrs.  Gainsborough  as  she 
must  have  looked  at  this  time  ;  her  husband  drew 
her  as  she  started  for  church  on  Sunday  morning, 
picking  her  way  carefully  across  the  street  in  her 
high-heeled  shoes,  her  paniercd  dress,  and  little 
straw  hat.  It  was  a  happy,  peaceful  time  for  the 
painter  ;  he  loved  music,  learnt  to  play  the  fiddle, 
and   belonged   to   a   musical  society    in    the    town. 

267 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

Musical  instruments  were  his  passion,  and  the  way 
in  which  he  paints  them  shows  his  technical  know- 
ledge of  them.  He  would  buy  every  new  one  he 
saw,  and  we  hear  of  him  possessing  in  turn  a 
viol  de  gamba,  a  hautboy,  and  a  theorbo.  There  is  a 
portrait  by  him  in  Hampton  Court  of  his  son- 
in-law,  Dr.  Fischer,  one  of  Queen  Charlotte's 
musicians  ;  his  fiddle  lies  on  the  chair  beside  him, 
so  accurately  painted  that  its  maker's  name  could  at 
once  be  given  by  anyone  well  read  in  the  history 
of  fiddles. 

Gainsborough  moved,  in  1760,  to  the  fashionable 
town  of  Bath.  He  took  a  house  more  expensive 
than  his  prudent  wife  approved,  but  sitters  soon 
flocked  to  his  studio  in  the  newly-built  Circus. 
These  pidtures  were  mostly  exhibited  at  the  Royal 
Academy,  of  which  Gainsborough  was  an  original 
member,  and  there  year  after  year  were  to  be  seen 
large  full-length  portraits  by  him  of  fine  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  actors  and  officers  of  His  Majesty's 
army.  He  painted  Garrick  for  the  Corporation  of 
Stratford-on-Avon,  and  his  was  Mrs.  Garrick's 
favourite  among  all  the  portraits  that  had  been 
painted  of  her  "  Davy." 

Miss  Moser,  the  flower-painter,  who  with  Sir 
Joshua's  Miss  Kaufi^mann  were  the  only  two 
women  ever  elected  to  the  Royal  Academy,  wrote 
one  year  a  description  of  what  had  been  the  most 
talked-of  pi(5lure  in  that  year's  exhibition,  "  a  por- 

268 


\r.,„y,ii. 


THK    BMK    BOY. 
{After  thf  pic/iirr  hv  Thonuts  f>tirn.ifH>roiif^h  in  the  Diikaof  ICrsfnini^rrr  s  Collection.) 


UNIVERSITY 


GAINSBOROUGH 

trait  of  a  gentleman  in  a  V^an  Dyke  habit,"  possibly 
the  Duke  of  Westminster's  famous  "  Blue  Boy," 
one  of  Gainsborough's  masterpieces.  The  youth 
was  the  son  of  a  well-to-do  ironmonger,  Jonathan 
Buttall  of  Soho  ;  the  pi6ture  is  interesting,  because 
it  is  supposed  to  have  led  Sir  Joshua,  in  one  of  his 
discourses,  to  have  declaimed  against  the  use  of 
blue  as  the  dominant  colour  in  a  pifture,  which,  he 
says,  should  rather  be  kept  to  masses  of  light  of  a 
"  warm  mellow  colour,  yellow,  red,  or  a  yellowish 
white."  The  "  Blue  Boy"  disproves  this  statement 
triumphantly  :  its  blue  colour,  glowing  with  an 
inner  light,  is  the  keynote  in  a  beautiful  scheme  ot 
various  shades,  all  cool. 

You  see  him  standing  in  our  illustration,  the 
gallant  young  fellow,  holding  his  wide  plumed  hat 
in  his  right  hand,  his  left  on  his  hip,  his  cloak 
thrown  over  his  arm.  Behind  him,  the  cloudy  sky 
brightening  on  the  horizon  and  the  park-like  land- 
scape form  a  kind  of  natural  background  to  his  slim 
elegance.  He  may  have  been  lying  on  that  grassy 
hillock,  reading  Spenser's  "Faery  Queen,"  and  have 
just  sprung  up  to  attention,  his  dreaming  eyes  still 
full  of  the  poetry  that  he  loves. 

During  this  Bath  period,  when  Gainsborough 
had  to  send  his  pictures  up  to  London  for  exhibi- 
tion, he  always  confided  them  to  the  care  of 
Wiltshire,  the  carrier,  who  refused  to  accept  any 
payment,  so  great  was  his  admiration  of  the  artist's 

269 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

work.  Gainsborough,  with  his  usual  generosity, 
would  give  the  man  a  picture  now  and  then,  and 
the  portrait  of  Orpin,  Parish  Clerk  of  Bradford-on- 
Avon,  now  in  the  National  Gallery,  was  one  of 
these  gifts,  and  was  bought  from  one  of  Wiltshire's 
descendants.  Gainsborough  used  to  say  that  this 
pi(^ture  was  painted  to  music,  for  as  he  worked,  he 
heard  the  sweet  sound  of  singing  from  another 
room,  and  the  melody  wove  itself  into  the  ex- 
pression of  the  man  on  his  canvas.  Amongst  other 
well-known  people  painted  by  him  at  Bath  are 
Richardson,  the  bookseller  who  wrote  "  Pamela  " 
and  many  thrilling  romances  of  the  day,  and  the 
ill-fated  young  poet,  Chatterton  of  Bristol. 

Gainsborough's  last  move  was  to  London,  where, 
in  1774,  he  rented  part  of  Schomberg  House  in 
Pall  Mall,  which  is  still  standing.  The  King, 
George  III.,  sent  for  him  at  once,  and  set  the 
fashion  of  admiring  the  Gainsborough  portraits,  nor 
did  this  popularity  ever  desert  him.  The  Royal 
Family  sat  to  him  often.  At  this  time  there  was 
a  large  nursery  full  of  pretty  fair-haired  royal 
children,  and  in  the  royal  colle6lion  at  Windsor 
there  are  no  fewer  than  seventeen  life-sized  heads  of 
different  members  of  the  King's  family,  all  painted 
by  Gainsborough  in  the  course  of  one  month,  show- 
ing how  extraordinarily  rapidly  he  worked.  These 
portraits,  like  all  the  rest  of  his  beautiful,  swiftly 
executed  pictures,  bear  no  sign  of  hesitation  or  of 

270 


GAINSBOROUGH 

second  thoughts  ;  they  testify  to  a  happy  concep- 
tion carried  out  straightway  to  a  perfe(^t  con- 
clusion. 

He  painted  the  famous  Duchess  of  Devonshire 
several  times,  at  first  finding  her  loveliness  difficult 
to  catch.  "  Her  Grace  is  too  hard  for  me,"  he 
said.  But  he  conquered  the  likeness  at  last  in  the 
well-known  portrait  of  her  that  was  stolen  after 
its  sale  at  Christie's  auftion  rooms,  and  only  dis- 
covered nearly  thirty  years  later.  It  is  now  in 
America. 

In  1780,  when  the  exhibition  of  the  Royal 
Academy  was  first  held  at  Somerset  House,  Gains- 
borough showed  a  portrait  of  Sir  Henry  Bate 
Dudley,  now  in  the  National  Gallery.  This  curious 
Baronet-clergyman  was  the  first  editor  of  the 
Morning  Post,  and  was  sent  by  Garrick  to  report  on 
Mrs.  Siddons  when  that  great  adtress  made  her  first 
appearance  on  the  stage  at  Cheltenham.  He  was 
himself  a  playwright,  published  sermons,  and  was  a 
friend  of  the  Prince  Regent,  who,  as  George  IV., 
made  him  Prebend  of  Ely. 

The  lovely  portrait  of  Mrs.  Siddons  in  the 
National  Gallery  was  also  painted  by  Gainsborough 
when  she  was  twenty-eight,  just  a  year  before 
Reynolds  immortalized  her  as  the  "  Tragic  Muse." 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  severity  in  the  beautiful 
face  of  the  Gainsborough  portrait,  as  she  sits  there 
so  quietly  dignified  in  her  striped  dress  of  blue  and 

271 


ENGLISH   SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

white.  "There  is  no  end  to  your  nose,  madam,"  he 
is  reported  to  have  said  to  her  chidingly  ;  and  she 
may  have  struck  the  painter  as  awe-inspiring. 
People  were  apt  to  be  frightened  of  Mrs.  Siddons, 
and  Miss  Burney  wrote  that  her  "deportment  was 
by  no  means  engaging,"  while  Mrs.  Thrale  ex- 
claimed on  the  same  occasion  :  "  Why,  this  is  a 
leaden  goddess  we  are  all  worshipping  !"  Years 
after,  when  Mrs.  Siddons  was  an  old  woman,  a 
friend  saw  her  seated  near  her  pidture,  and,  looking 
from  one  to  the  other,  remarked  that  it  was  like  her 
still  at  the  age  of  seventy. 

About  the  same  time  as  the  Siddons  portrait, 
Gainsborough  painted  the  "  \^iew  in  the  Mall  of 
S.  James's  Park,"  an  enchanting  pifture  of  the 
world  of  fashion  airing  itself  in  the  green  shades 
of  their  favourite  walk,  "  all  full  of  motion  and 
flutter,  like  a  lady's  fan."  It  is  the  one  picture  of 
his  which  has  in  it  a  Watteau-like  touch.  Just  so 
did  the  great  Frenchman  paint  his  feathery  trees, 
and  in  just  such  a  green  w^orld  did  he  love 
to  place  his  charming  men  and  women.  Gains- 
borough's first  master,  Gravelot,  knew  Watteau's 
work  well,  and  he  may  have  introduced  his  pupil 
to  the  engravings  of  the  "  Fetes  Champetres."  The 
originals  he  could  not  have  seen,  for  he  never  left 
England. 

His  working  days  were  nearly  over.  In  1788  the 
town   was   all    excitement   at    the   trial   of  Warren 

272 


GAINSBOROUGH 

Hastings,  of  the  East  India  Company,  impeached 
before  the  House  of  Lords.  To  this  trial  Gains- 
borough, of  course,  went,  and  it  was  there  that  he 
first  became  conscious  of  illness.  This  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end  for  the  great  painter,  who  died  a 
few  months  later,  after  much  suffering.  As  he  lay 
dying,  Reynolds  was  asked  to  come  and  see  him. 
There  had  been  a  coolness  between  the  two  men, 
whose  characters,  quite  apart  from  professional 
jealousy,  were  too  different  to  allow  of  any  real 
friendship.  But  now,  in  the  shadow  of  death,  every- 
thing was  forgiven.  "  If  any  little  jealousies  had 
subsisted  between  us,"  Sir  Joshua  said,  "  they  were 
forgotten  in  those  moments  of  sincerity."  Nothing 
was  remembered  but  the  art  they  both  loved  and 
served  so  well.  "  We  are  all  going  to  Heaven,"  said 
the  dying  man  to  the  President,  "  and  Van  Dyck  is 
of  the  company." 

Reynolds  himself  pronounced  Gainsborough's 
obituary  oration  at  the  Royal  Academy  ;  in  it  he 
showed  that,  though  the  dead  master  had  learnt  his 
art  at  the  feet  of  Rubens  and  \^an  Dyck,  "  he  ap- 
plied to  the  originals  of  nature  that  which  he  saw 
with  his  own  eyes,  and  imitated,  not  in  the  manner 
of  those  artists,  but  in  his  own."  This  is  indeed  true; 
Gainsborough's  vision  was  singularly  deep,  and  what 
he  saw  he  was  able,  with  a  happy  inventiveness,  to 
carry  out,  lightly  and  securely. 

Though  a  Court  painter,  Gainsborough  went  little 

273  T 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

into  society  ;  he  liked  best  to  spend  his  evenings 
quietly  with  his  wife,  drawing  her  as  she  sat  beside 
him. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  he  was  also  a  land- 
scape painter.  As  he  grew  more  occupied  with  his 
portraits,  he  had  less  time  to  give  to  his  earlier  love, 
but  "  I  painted  portraits  for  money,"  he  said,  "land- 
scapes because  I  loved  them."  Like  Rubens,  he  knew 
how  to  seize  the  general  idea  of  a  country-side,  and 
seleft  just  such  parts  as  should  compose  a  noble 
pi(5ture.  He  is  the  founder  of  the  modern  school 
of  landscape-painting.  You  can  see  many  examples 
in  the  National  Gallery:  "The  Market  Cart"; 
"  The  Watering  Place,"  treated  in  several  different 
ways;  "The  View  of  Dedham,"  this  last  a  charm- 
ing picture  of  a  distant  village,  with  a  church-spire, 
seen  across  sunlit  meadows,  from  a  copse  of  shady 
trees  in  the  foreground.  But  it  is  part  of  Gains- 
borough's genius  that  there  is  no  sharp  distinction 
between  these  two  sides  of  his  art.  In  his  portraits 
lovely  landscapes  surround  his  sitters,  as  you  may  see, 
for  example,  in  Hertford  House,  where  his  "  Perdita 
Robinson  "  might  any  minute  rise  from  the  grassy 
bank  on  which  she  sits,  call  her  little  eager  dog  to 
follow  her,  and  walk  off  into  the  woods  beyond. 
Just  so  his  landscapes  are  decorated  with  charming 
figures,  so  rightly  placed,  so  happily  intent  on  their 
own  occupations  of  love-making,  cart-driving,  or 
wayside  loitering,  that  not  for  a  moment  do  we  feel 

274 


GAINSBOROUGH 

they  are  put  in  arbitrarily  ;  they  are  there  because 
Gainsborough,  in  his  simple,  happy  way,  saw  them 
there,  and  wished  us  to  share  his  pleasure  in  them. 
For  Gainsborough  was  before  all  things  a  lover  of 
beauty,  and  amongst  our  English  artists  no  one  has 
equalled  him  in  his  power  of  rendering  it. 


275 


CHAPTER  V 

ROMNEY    (1734-1802). 

"  All  the  town,"  said  Lord  Thurlow  the  lawyer, 
"  is  divided  into  two  factions,  the  Reynolds  and  the 
Romney,  and  I  am  of  the  Romney  faftion."  No 
men  could  well  have  been  more  different  than  the 
two  portrait-painters  who  thus  shared  the  privilege 
of  painting  the  famous  men  and  beautiful  women 
in  the  days  when  George  III.  was  King.  Reynolds, 
courteous,  well  balanced  and  sociable,  placidly  ful- 
filled his  destiny ;  Romney,  reserved,  excitable  and 
morbid,  created  his  own  difficulties,  and  never  knew 
happiness,  except  in  a  few  dazzling  interludes. 
"  Fear  has  always  been  my  enemy,"  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  Hayley,  the  poetaster,  and  by  fear  his  life 
was  crippled,  in  spite  of  his  genius.  He  was  the  son 
of  a  Lancashire  cabinet-maker,  who  prided  himself 
on  being  the  first  to  introduce  mahogany  furniture 
into  the  north  of  England.  In  his  father's  house, 
Romney  found  a  copy  of  Leonardo's  "  Treatise  on 
Painting,"  with  prints,  from  which  he  made  draw- 
ings. After  this  admirable  introduction  to  his  art, 
he  had  to  content  himself  with  what  teaching  he 
could  procure,  and  was  at  one  time  apprenticed  to  a 

276 


ROMNEY 

travelling  portrait-painter.  He  made  an  imprudent 
marriage  when  only  twenty  with  a  young  servant-girl 
who  had  nursed  him  when  he  lay  ill  with  a  fever  at  a 
poor  inn.  Six  years  later,  when  he  went  to  try  his  for- 
tunes in  London,  he  left  his  wife  and  two  children 
behind  him,  after  having  divided  his  small  earnings 
with  her.  He  made  his  fortune  in  time,  but  he  never 
sent  for  his  family  to  join  him.  Romney  has  been 
severely  blamed  for  this,  but  perhaps  Mrs.  Romney, 
with  no  education  nor  knowledge  of  town  manners, 
preferred  to  go  on  living  among  her  own  people. 
Anyway,  there  was  never  any  breach  between  them, 
and  as  the  son  grew  up,  he  divided  his  time  between 
his  two  parents ;   the  little  girl  died  early. 

When  Romney  reached  London,  Reynolds,  in 
his  house  in  Leicester  Square,  was  in  the  full  tide 
of  his  prosperity  ;  Gainsborough  had  just  settled  at 
Bath,  and  both  painters  were  attra(5ling  countless 
sitters  ;  yet  the  unknown  artist  soon  got  a  firm 
foothold  in  the  great  world,  and  exhibited  his  por- 
traits every  year.  In  two  years'  time  he  had  saved 
enough  to  go  to  Paris,  with  introductions  which 
admitted  him  to  the  royal  colledlions  at  the 
Louvre,  the  Luxembourg,  and  the  Palais  Royal. 
Curiously  enough,  he  seems  to  have  ignored  the 
modern  artists,  in  whose  work  Paris  was  then  so 
rich.  He  does  not  mention  Boucher,  who  was  by 
that  time  dire(5ling  the  restored  Gobelin  factories 
and   charming    the    world  with    his   pastoral    land- 

277 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

scapes,  nor  Greuze,  whose  pretty,  empty  girls' 
heads  were  then  at  the  height  of  their  popularity. 
He  does  not  seem  to  have  noticed  the  Watteaus  in 
the  Louvre  ;  he  preferred  the  pompous  masters  of 
Louis  XIV. 's  time,  who  painted  in  a  correal  and 
rather  colourless  manner.  His  fullest  admiration, 
however,  was  given  to  the  Marie  de  Medicis  series 
by  Rubens,  then  hanging  in  the  Luxembourg,  but 
he  does  not  appear  to  have  been  at  all  influenced  by 
these  pictures  in  his  own  work. 

On  his  return  to  London,  he  found  employment 
without  any  difficulty.  Sir  Joshua  had  been  putting 
up  the  prices  of  his  portraits,  and  the  younger 
man's  more  modest  demands  suited  the  public. 
But  Romney  was  not  content  with  popularity  ; 
his  dream  had  always  been  to  go  to  Italy,  and  by 
1772  he  had  saved  enough  to  make  the  longed-for 
pilgrimage.  He  sent  his  wife  a  hundred  pounds 
and  set  off  for  the  South,  leaving  a  letter  to  his 
father  about  his  son's  education,  the  spelling  of 
which  shows  how  little  thought  had  been  given  to 
his  own.  "  Take  care  of  Molly  and  John,"  he 
writes,  "  and  keep  him  at  a  good  scool  and  desire 
him  to  endeavour  to  retain  the  butys  and  know- 
ledge the  lattin  authors  are  filled  with."  This  love 
of  the  classic  authors,  whose  works  he  can  only 
have  known  from  translations,  runs  through  the 
whole  of  Romney's  life,  and  connects  him  with 
Flaxman    and    the     beginning    of    the    nineteenth 

278 


ROMNEY 

century,  rather  than  with  his  immediate  contem- 
poraries. "  We  saw  many  may-poles  ere(i:ted  in  the 
streets,"  he  writes  from  Nice,  as  he  journeyed 
towards  Rome  in  the  May  weather,  "  and  in  the 
evening  rings  of  women,  hand  in  hand,  dancing 
round  them,  singing  beautiful  airs.  .  .  .  They  moved 
with  the  greatest  vivacity  and  spirit.  The  air  of 
antiquity  it  carried  along  with  it  had  the  most 
enchanting  effe(i;t.  I  thought  myself  removed  two 
thousand  years  and  a  spectator  of  scenes  in  Arcadia." 
Romney  may  have  remembered  this  evening  at 
Nice  when,  later  in  life,  he  painted  the  lovely 
group  of  Lord  Stafford's  daughters,  circling  in  a 
classic  dance  to  the  sound  of  a  tambourine. 

Unlike  Sir  Joshua,  Romney  made  no  use  of  the 
many  social  opportunities  in  Rome.  He  spent  his 
time  sketching  the  Roman  peasant-models,  copying 
Raphael's  pictures,  and  making  drawings  after 
Michelangelo.  But,  best  of  all,  he  drank  in  the 
large,  bright  atmosphere  of  Rome  itself,  and  he 
left  it  with  immense  regret.  He  was  at  first 
"  benummed,"  he  wrote,  "  but  next  day  my  affec- 
tions began  to  revive,  and  something  hung  about 
my  heart  that  felt  like  sorrow."  He  climbed  Mount 
Viterbo  for  a  last  glimpse  of  Rome,  and  "  looked 
with  an  eager  eye  to  discover  that  divine  place.  It 
was  enveloped  in  a  bright  vapour.  .  .  .  My  mind 
visited  every  place,  and  thought  of  everything  that 
had  given  it  pleasure,  and  I  continued  some  time  in 

279 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

that  state,  with  a  thousand  tender  sensations  play- 
ing about  my  heart,  till  I  was  almost  lost  in 
sorrow."  Nothing  in  all  Sir  Joshua's  Italian  notes 
speaks  so  straight  from  the  heart  as  those  few 
sentences. 

Two  years  later,  Romney  was  back  in  London 
again,  where  he  boldly  took  a  fine  house, 
32,  Cavendish  Square,  pulled  down  only  a  few 
years  ago.  His  courage  was  rewarded,  for  a  powerful 
patron  soon  visited  his  studio,  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond, President  of  the  Society  of  Arts,  who  com- 
missioned him  to  paint  his  portrait.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  Romney 's  success,  and  during  the 
next  twenty  years  a  ceaseless  stream  of  fashionable 
folk  stopped  their  coaches  at  his  door.  We  are  not 
told  Sir  Joshua's  opinion  of  his  rival  ;  Romney,  on 
the  other  hand,  though  he  sincerely  admired  the 
President's  work,  refused  to  exhibit  at  the  Royal 
Academy.  This  accounts  for  the  little  stir  his 
beautiful  pictures  appear  to  have  made,  as  they 
quietly  left  his  studio  year  after  year,  bound  straight 
for  the  country-houses  they  had  been  ordered  to 
adorn.  They  were  not  like  Reynolds',  engraved 
almost  as  soon  as  they  were  painted.  One  of  them, 
'  Serena,"  an  illustration  of  a  poem  by  Hayley, 
was  popular  as  an  engraving,  and  you  may  see  her, 
a  girl  in  a  white  cap,  bending  over  her  book,  intent 
on  reading  to  the  last  flicker  of  her  one  candle.  In 
the  National  Gallery  is  his  "  Parson's  Daughter,"  a 

280 


ROMNEY 

pretty,  girlish  creature,  wearing  a  green  ribbon  in 
her  lightly  powdered  hair,  and  a  white  kerchief 
tucked  into  her  brown  dress. 

There,  too,  you  will  see  his  "  Lady  Hamilton 
as  a  Bacchante,"  with  dishevelled  hair  and  capti- 
vating head,  tilted  over  her  right  shoulder.  Lady 
Hamilton,  his  "  Divine  Emma,"  as  he  called  her, 
was  his  favourite  sitter.  He  has  left  thirty  finished 
portraits  of  her,  besides  nuniberless  sketches.  She 
was  an  ideal  model,  for  not  only  was  she  a  very 
beautiful  young  woman,  but  she  had  been  a  pro- 
fessional dancer,  and  was  accustomed  to  study  clas- 
sical poses.  This  made  her  invaluable  to  Romney, 
who  has  painted  her  in  every  conceivable  attitude, 
as  Circe,  Cassandra,  and  Calypso,  as  "  The  Spin- 
stress,"  where  Emma  sits,  her  lovely  head  wrapped 
round  hood-fashion,  busy  at  her  spinning-wheel;  as 
a  Magdalen,  a  Saint,  and  a  Nun.  The  last  picture 
he  ever  painted  of  her  has  been  recently  exhibited 
in  London.  It  represents  her  as  she  looked  on  her 
wedding  morning,  just  returned  from  her  marriage- 
service  in  Marylebone  Church.  She  wears  a  blue 
velvet  hat  with  a  high  feather,  and  in  the  distance 
\'esuvius  flames,  to  remind  us  that  her  husband.  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  was  Ambassador  to  the  Court 
at  Naples.  When  she  left  England,  Romney  felt 
her  departure  keenly,  but  he  continued  working, 
painting  Lady  Hamilton  from  memory  as  Ariadne, 
and  many  sitters,  from  Archbishops  to  adl:resses.  He 

281 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

painted  Miss  \^ernon,  too,  as  "The  Sempstress," 
sewing  quietly  in  her  shady  hat  under  a  tree  in  her 
garden.  But  his  health  was  failing,  and  his  natural 
gloominess  increased.  He  sold  his  old  house  in 
Cavendish  Square,  and  prepared  plans  for  a  gorgeous 
new  one  to  be  built  somewhere  in  the  Edgware 
Road,  then  a  pretty  country  neighbourhood.  His 
son  persuaded  him  to  content  himself  with  a  house 
at  Hampstead,  but  his  illness  and  restlessness  in- 
creased so  fast  that  he  turned  his  back  on  his 
pictures  and  his  ambitions,  and  went  home  to  the 
north,  to  his  wife  and  his  old  associations.  There 
he  was  carefully  tended,  and,  two  years  later,  in  i  802, 
died  at  Kendal  in  the  Lake  country. 

Romney  is  an  artist's  painter ;  the  trained  eye 
best  appreciates  his  piftures,  their  always  excellent 
design,  their  sound  drawing  and  pleasant  colour. 
He  had  a  real  passion  for  beauty,  and  even  in  his 
unfinished  sketches  the  way  his  heads  are  rapidly 
drawn  in  on  the  canvas  gives  a  sense  of  great  satis- 
faction. He  was  not  strongly  intellectual  like  Rey- 
nolds, nor  has  he  Gainsborough's  mastery  of  colour, 
but  he  fills  a  very  definite  place  in  our  roll  of 
eighteenth-century  artists,  and  we  could  ill  afford  to 
spare  him. 


282 


CHAPTER  VI 

Richard  Wilson   (1714-1782). 

When  the  Royal  Academy  was  founded  there 
stood  on  the  roll  of  its  members  the  names  of  three 
men,  each  ot  them  in  his  own  way  pre-eminent. 
The  first  was  Reynolds,  the  President,  a  portrait- 
painter  ;  the  second  was  Gainsborough,  who 
painted  portraits  for  his  living  and  landscapes  for 
his  pleasure  ;  the  third  was  Richard  Wilson,  their 
senior  by  some  ten  years,  whose  name  will  live  by 
his  landscapes. 

Landscape-painting  was  little  practised  in  the 
early  days  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Hogarth 
used  it  only  as  a  background  to  certain  pictures — 
for  example,  in  the  open-air  scene  of  his  "  Elec- 
tion "  series.  Portrait-painting  was  the  fishionable 
art,  and  Horace  Walpole  wrote  with  regret  :  **  In  a 
country  so  profusely  beautiful  with  the  amenities 
of  Nature  as  ours,  it  is  extraordinary  that  we  have 
produced  so  few  good  painters  of  landscape." 
Probably  the  taste  for  landscape  was  of  slow 
growth,  for,  in  the  general  lack  of  patrons,  Wilson's 
life   was   a   long   struggle   with   poverty,   and   only 

283 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

Peter  Pindar,  the  squib-writing  dodtor,  had  the 
good  taste  to  prophesy  smooth  things  to  him — 

"  But,  honest  Wilson,  never  mind  ; 
Immortal  praises  thou  shalt  find  " — 

warning  him,  however,  that  he  would  have  to  wait 
a  hundred  years  for  his  recompense,  a  singularly 
apt  prophecy  ! 

Wilson  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman  in  Wales, 
and  was  educated  by  his  father.  A  rich  kinsman 
brought  him  to  London,  where  he  began  his  career 
by  painting  portraits.  These  were  of  no  special 
importance,  though  one,  the  youthful  Prince  of 
Wales,  afterwards  George  III.,  with  his  brother, 
the  Duke  of  York,  and  their  tutor,  is  now  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery,  and  several  more  are  in 
the  Garrick  Club.  He  saved  enough  to  take  him 
to  Italy,  but  not  till  he  was  in  his  thirty-sixth  year. 
There  he  stayed  for  six  years,  painting  and  giving 
lessons.  He  made  friends  among  the  foreign 
artists  living  in  Rome,  and  the  travelling  English- 
men. His  best  friend  was  the  Italian,  Zuccarelli, 
whose  landscapes  were  greatly  admired  in  England. 
He  urged  Wilson  to  take  up  landscape-painting, 
but  the  taste  of  the  times  was  not  cultivated  enough 
to  care  for  Wilson's  serious  and  beautiful  work. 
Zuccarelh',  on  the  other  hand,  who  had  begun  life 
as  a  scene-painter  for  the  Opera,  sold  picture  after 
picture,    for    liis    pretty,   insipid    style    was    easily 

284 


RICHARD   WILSON 

understood,  and  Frederick,  the  foolish  Prince  of 
Wales,  had  set  the  fashion  by  buying  steadily  from 
him.  Wilson,  scorned  by  the  world  of  buyers,  would 
have  starved  in  England  had  he  not  late  in  life 
obtained  the  post  of  librarian  to  the  Royal  Academy, 
with  a  small  salary. 

Wilson  lived  at  first,  while  he  still  had  hopes  of 
being  a  successful  artist,  in  a  large  house  in  Covent 
Garden  ;  but  as  time  went  on  and  he  grew  poorer, 
he  moved  about  from  one  mean  lodging  to  another. 
He  once  lived  in  Charlotte  Street,  Fitzroy  Square, 
because  in  those  days  there  was  still  a  beautiful 
view  from  his  windows,  northwards  to  the  heights 
of  Highgate  and  Hampstead.  Quite  at  the  end  of 
his  life  he  inherited  from  a  brother  a  small  estate 
in  Wales,  and  retired  to  Llanberis  to  end  his  days  in 
modest  comfort. 

All  his  life,  undisturbed  by  want  of  recognition, 
Wilson  was  upheld  by  the  certainty  that  his  work 
would  live ;  and  his  proud  hopes  have  been  fulfilled. 
He  ranks  among  the  greatest  of  English  landscape- 
painters.  He  drew  his  chief  inspiration  from  the 
pi(ftures  of  Claude  and  Poussin,  those  two  French- 
men, who,  living  in  Rome  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  both  painted,  unwearyingly, 
its  clear  skies  and  ancient  buildings,  either  as  land- 
scapes simply,  or  as  important  backgrounds  to 
pictures  illustrating  sacred  or  classical  stories.  From 
them   Wilson  learnt  a  love  of  broad  spaces,  rich, 

285 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

quiet  colouring,  and  detail  carefully  subordinated. 
People  object  that  his  preoccupation  with  Roman 
scenery  made  him  paint  his  native  Wales  as  if  it 
were  the  Campagna.  But  if  you  look  at  the  illus- 
tration from  his  pidiure,  "  On  the  Wye,"  you  will 
see  how  really  English  is  the  stormy  evening  sky, 
under  which  the  mountains  and  river-banks  turn 
golden  in  the  sun's  parting  rays.  There  are  many 
other  pictures  by  him  in  the  National  Gallery,  but 
this  evening  scene  is  perhaps  the  best.  The  sharp 
contrasts  of  light  and  shade  are  pleasant  to  the  eye, 
and  the  pure  bright  blue  of  the  river  in  the  sun- 
light, by  many  shades  brighter  than  the  grey-blue 
of  the  sky,  shines  like  a  jewel  in  a  casket  of  green 
and  gold. 

"The  Ruins  of  the  Villa  of  Maecenas  at  Tivoli  " 
was  painted  in  1754,  during  Wilson's  Roman  period. 
He  had  gone  out  to  spend  the  day  and  dine  under 
the  trees  at  Tivoli  with  four  English  noblemen,  one 
of  whom,  the  Earl  of  Thanet,  bought  the  pifture, 
which  passed  later  into  the  colle(!:tion  of  Words- 
worth's friend.  Sir  George  Beaumont,  who  gave  it 
to  the  nation.  It  is  a  fine  composition,  marked  by 
the  tall  cypresses  with  their  distaff-like  summits, 
and  the  white  villa,  w^hich  gives  its  name  to  the 
pidlure,  gleaming  high  in  the  distance. 

The  "  Destruction  of  Niobe's  Children  "  was  a 
favourite  subjed:  with  Wilson,  repeated,  they  say,  no 
less  than  five  times.   These  pictures  show  a  rocky 

286 


RICHARD  WILSON 

landscape,  fit  background  for  the  tragic  story  of  the 
proud  mother,  Niobe,  Queen  of  Thebes,  who,  boast- 
ing of  her  twelve  children  in  the  presence  of  Latona, 
mother  only  of  two,  was  forced  to  see  them  all 
struck  dead  by  the  arrows  of  the  twin  deities,  Apollo 
and  Artemis.  Niobe  herself  was  changed  into  a  stone 
on  the  mountain-side,  which  dripped  every  summer 
with  watery  tears. 

Another  charming  landscape,  also  in  the  National 
Gallery,  is  his  "  River  Scene."  The  river  is  spanned 
by  a  many-arched  bridge,  and  in  the  foreground  is  a 
large,  ancient  sarcophagus  rich  in  carven  figures.  It 
is  an  autumn  scene,  full  of  mellow  peacefulness. 

Two  new  Wilsons  have  lately  been  left  to  the 
nation  by  Mr.  Salting;  one  an  Italian  coast  scene, 
white  surf  beating  on  the  shore,  and  a  ruined  castle, 
perhaps  an  ancient  fort,  on  an  island  near  by.  The 
other  is  a  lake  scene  with  ruins,  perched  this  time 
on  a  rock  high  above  the  water ;  below,  a  man 
fishing  on  the  bank  of  the  lake,  a  girl  seated  beside 
him  in  the  placid  afternoon  light. 

Wilson  may  perhaps  be  compared  to  Keats,  the 
young  English  poet,  who  loved  classical  literature  so 
well  that,  though  he  could  only  read  its  beauties  in 
translations,  the  poetry  of  it  entered  into  his  soul 
and  coloured  all  his  lovely  poems.  So  Wilson,  born 
under  the  faint  blue  of  an  English  sky,  loved  all  his 
life  the  warmth  and  glow  and  dignity  of  Italy,  and 
infused  his  pictures  with  the  glory  of  his  own 
imaginings. 

287 


CHAPTER  VII 

MORLAND    (1763-1804). 

George  Morland,  the  animal-painter,  is  said  to 
have  written  his  own  epitaph,  and  the  tragedy  of 
his  short  life  is  summed  up  in  the  five  words  of  that 
epitaph,  "  Here  lies  a  drunken  dog."  He  came  of  a 
family  of  painters,  for  his  grandfather  and  his  father 
both  earned  their  living  by  painting,  and  his  mother, 
a  Frenchwoman  by  birth,  exhibited  her  work  at  the 
Royal  Academy.  His  father  set  the  boy  early  to  copy 
Hobbema  and  other  Dutch  masters  ;  and  he  was  the 
first  since  the  great  Dutchmen  of  the  seventeenth 
century  to  paint  exclusively  the  outdoor  life  of  the 
country-side,  its  fields  and  lanes,  its  farmyards  and 
alehouses,  all  with  a  genius  that  seemed  to  burn 
none  the  less  brightly  for  the  disorder  of  his  own 
life.  In  choosing  such  subjects,  Morland  followed 
no  traditions  of  English  art.  Hogarth's  work  does 
not  appear  to  have  had  any  influence  upon  him  ; 
Richard  Wilson,  who  died  when  Morland  was  nine- 
teen, saw  landscape  through  the  glorified  speftacles 
of  the  classic  Italian  artists  ;  Gainsborough  was  alive, 
and  his  earlier  landscapes  and  rustic  scenes  were 
certainly  known   to   Morland,   but  as  far  as   inner 

288 


MORLAND 

vision  went,  they  moved  in  entirely  different  worlds, 
and  only  every  now  and  then  is  any  influence  of  the 
elder  man's  work  to  be  seen  on  the  younger. 

The  boy  was  apprenticed  to  his  father,  and  worked 
with  him  for  several  years.  The  old  man  was  harsh 
and  severe  to  his  son,  training  him  well,  but  pre- 
venting him  from  enjoying  any  of  the  natural 
pleasures  of  his  age.  This  unkindness  had  a  bad 
effect  on  Morland's  character,  for  when  he  once 
tound  himself  free  from  his  apprenticeship,  he  re- 
fused to  enter  Romney's  studio  as  an  assistant  with 
a  good  salary,  saying  he  had  never  known  freedom 
in  his  life  before,  and  he  meant  to  have  it  now. 

But,  far  from  enjoying  freedom,  he  became  the 
slave  of  the  picture-dealer  in  whose  house  he  lodged, 
squandering  money  on  his  low  pursuits,  and  toiling 
hard     between    times    to    pay    for    these    doubtful 
pleasures.   He    was   a   good-looking   young   fellow, 
who  swaggered  through  life,  dressed  as  a  rule  in  a 
green  coat  with  large  yellow  buttons,  top-boots  and 
leather  breeches.  His  marriage,  when  he  was  twenty- 
three,  seemed  for  a  time  to  steady  him,  for  he  chose 
well,  and  Miss  Nancy  Ward,  the  sister  of  the  en- 
graver, his  friend,  made  him  a  devoted  wife.   Not, 
poor   soul,   that   she  could   always  live  with   him  : 
sometimes  he  left  her  for  weeks  together  to  join  his 
boon  companions,  the  gipsies,  travelling  thus  about 
the  country  to  escape  his  creditors.   But  he  always 
went  back  to  her,  and  she  would  say,  that,  bad  as  he 

289  u 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

was,  if  he  died,  she  would  not  outlive  him  three 
days,  which  in  course  of  time  really  happened. 
Morland  was  frequently  imprisoned  for  debt,  as 
people  used  to  be  in  those  days,  and  it  was  in  such 
a  "  sponging-house,"  as  it  was  called,  that  he  died, 
at  the  age  of  forty-one,  and  his  wife  dying  accord- 
ing to  her  prophecy  a  few  days  after,  they  were 
buried  together  in  a  little  burial-ground  then  exist- 
ing in  the  Hampstead  Road. 

In  the  National  Gallery  we  have  one  of  Morland's 
best  works,  which  you  may  study  from  our  illustra- 
tion. This  "Inside  of  a  Stable"  is  a  beautiful 
pi(5ture  ;  the  design  is  excellent,  and  the  horses — two 
great  cart-horses  and  a  little  sturdy  Welsh  pony — are 
masterly  in  treatment.  The  boy  leading  the  big 
grey  horse,  a  sprig  of  oak  in  his  coat,  is  charmingly 
placed.  The  summer  trees  wave  outside  the  open 
door,  and  the  light  lies  warmly  on  the  golden  straw 
and  heaped-up  mangers.  Equally  fine  is  another 
picture  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  "  Horses 
in  a  Stable."  The  great  beauty  in  the  painting  here 
lies  in  the  sorrel  horse  with  the  ash-grey  reflexions 
on  his  ribs  and  his  silver-grey  mane  and  tail.  In  the 
same  place  is  an  early  pifture,  "  The  \'alentine  " ; 
a  pretty  young  woman  sitting  at  her  cottage-door 
in  the  sunshine  is  holding  up  a  pale  blue  ribbon  to 
an  old  woman  with  wrinkled  hands.  There  are  no 
animals  in  this  picture,  only  two  white  hens  at  the 
girl's  feet ;  the  girl  herself  is  treated  in  a  way  that 

290 


MORLAND 

suggests  a  knowledge  of  Watteau's  pi(^hires.  Morland 
had  been  once  in  France  before  bis  marriage,  so  be 
may  bave  seen  tbem  in  tbe  Louvre  ;  perbaps  it  was 
his  mother's  French  blood  in  biin  that  gives  this 
occasional  French  grace  to  his  work.  Other  pi(;:tiires 
in  which  Morland  shows  his  skill  in  treating  women 
are  Sir  Charles  Tennant's  "  Industry  "  and  "  Idle- 
ness." Tbe  industrious  lady  in  a  white  dress,  dark 
blue  coat,  and  great  broad-brim.med  bat,  sits  in  her 
grey-walled  room  at  her  polished  table  on  which  is 
set  out  her  workbox  of  white  wood.  The  idle  lady 
is  a  study  in  white  and  grey.  She  wears  white,  and 
a  mob-cap  trimmed  with  a  pale  pink  ribbon;  her 
cloak  lined  with  silver-grey  hangs  over  her  chair. 

In  tbe  same  collection  are  two  more  pidtures, 
which  have  often  been  engraved,  "  Boys  robbing  an 
Orchard,"  and  "  Boys  playing  at  Soldiers."  The 
young  thieves  bave  been  caught  by  the  farmer;  the 
apple-trees  are  gnarled  and  old,  their  ripe  truit  and 
thick  foliage  are  beautifully  painted  ;  the  boys 
themselves  are  not  village  youngsters,  but  slender 
lads  in  the  pid:uresque  clothes  of  the  period,  knee- 
breeches,  soft  white  shirts,  and  striped  waistcoats. 
One  clambers  in  alarm  from  the  tree  whose 
branches  he  has  been  shaking  ;  tbe  others  pick  up 
their  coats  and  waistcoats  and  stolen  truit  with 
guilty  haste  ;  you  see  how  charmingly  their  switt 
motion  is  rendered.  There  is  less  of  this  quality  in 
the  second  pi(flure  ;   the  playing  children  are  posed 

291 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

at  their  game,  which  they  are  carrying  out  with 
pretty  seriousness  under  the  old  oak-tree,  beneath 
the  summer  blue  of  the  sky,  crossed  with  white 
clouds.  One  little  girl  is  the  drummer,  a  little  boy 
is  the  officer  with  his  sword,  three  carry  sticks  as 
rifles,  one  has  a  little  gun.  The  biggest  boy  in  a 
paper  helmet  has  a  flag.  The  war  with  America 
was  not  long  over  when  Morland  painted  these 
children,  and  they  must  have  heard  plenty  of  talk 
of  battles  and  fighting,  and  seen  preparations  for 
war  too,  and  the  drilling  of  the  recruits.  The  nurse- 
maid holds  her  baby  up  to  enjoy  the  show,  and  the 
smallest  girl,  too  young  to  be  a  soldier,  is  nursing 
her  doll  in  imitation  of  her  nurse.  You  may  per- 
haps see  these  pictures  some  day,  for  the  Tennant 
Gallery  is  open  at  certain  times,  and  is  very  rich  in 
English  pi(5lures. 

Morland  has  painted  another  pi(fture  connected 
more  tragically  with  the  wars  ;  it  is  called,  "  The 
Deserter's  Farewell."  A  poor  fellow  has  run  away 
from  his  regiment,  and  gone  back  to  his  wife  and 
cottage-home.  He  has  been  tracked  down  by  the 
soldiers,  who  stand,  in  their  three-cornered  hats  and 
red  coats,  waiting  to  tear  him  from  his  wife's 
passionate  embrace.  But  in  the  end,  far  surpassing 
these  "  story-pifturcs,"  it  is  by  his  painting  of 
horses  and  pigs  that  Morland  will  be  remembered. 
Nobody  before  him  ever  painted  the  "  spirit "  of  a 
horse  or  a  pig,  and  this  he  has  done  iiupremely  well, 

292 


MORLAND 

so  that  his  very  name  conjures  up  before  us  a  farm- 
yard and  littered  straw,  with  sunshine  falling  on 
the  strong  backs  of  cart-horses,  going  out  to,  or 
coming  back  from,  their  labours  ;  on  cows,  standing 
idly  about ;  on  stout  mother-pigs  and  active  baby- 
pigs  ;  on  flocks  of  ducks  huddled  together  in  some 
moist  spot  of  the  yard.  Whether  you  know  his 
paintings  or  not,  you  are  certain  to  see  engravings 
of  them,  for  they  were  popular  from  the  first,  and 
are  still  reproduced,  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  who 
love  homely  scenes  of  English  life,  freshly  painted 
and  represented  with  a  charming  kind  of  natural 
elegance. 

I  have  led  you  now  through  so  many  ages  of 
painters,  and  have  told  you  of  so  many  varying  styles 
of  painting,  that  I  will  not  detain  you  longer.  In 
the  end,  you  must,  each  one  of  you,  study  pidfures 
for  yourselves,  and  enjoy  their  beauties  by  the  light 
of  your  own  personal  prejudices.  Only,  as  with  all 
other  good  gifts,  the  love  of  pictures  must  be  trained, 
and  you  cannot  learn  too  early  that,  before  you  can 
dance, you  must  acquire  the  habit  of  standing  upright, 
and  that  those  pi(^tures  which  are,  at  first,  the  most 
easily  understood  will  not  always,  in  the  long  run, 
best  repay  your  admiring  love. 

I  will  remind  you  too  that,  when  a  man  makes  a 
picflure,  he  has  to  reconcile  the  fa6ls  of  nature  with 
the  limitations  of  a  given  square  of  canvas.    Paint- 

293 


ENGLISH  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTERS 

ing,  therefore,  must  always  be  in  bondage  to  certain 
conventions,  and  will  ditter  according  to  the  im- 
pression the  artist  has  himself  received,  and  to  the 
manner  in  which  he  sets  about  handing  it  on  to  us. 

Sometimes  a  whole  convention  will  change,  as 
when  Paolo  Uccello  introduced  the  laws  of  per- 
spective, and  taught  that,  from  one  particular  point 
of  view,  only  a  limited  part  of  any  objed:  can  be 
seen.  You  may  yourselves  see  some  equally  astound- 
ing change,  for  the  art  of  painting  is  bound  up  with 
the  life  of  the  human  race,  and  is  as  capable  of 
development  as  natural  science  itself ;  but  you  will, 
I  hope,  never  forget  to  love  beauty  and  truth,  and 
to  train  yourselves  with  all  diligence  to  apprehend 
them. 

Your  reward  will  indeed  be  great,  and  it  will  come 
to  you  in  innumerable  forms,  so  widely  do  human 
capacities  differ,  as  you  know;  yet,  to  all  of  you 
who  seek,  one  promise  may  safely  be  given,  ex- 
pressed   in   better   words    than    any    I    can    myself 


invent 


"  And  there  shall  be  for  thee  all  soft  delight, 
That  shadowy  thought  can  win  ; 
A  brigiit  torch,  and  a  casement  ope  at  night, 
To  let  the  warm  Love  in  !" 


294 


INDEX  OF  NAiMES 


ACOSTINO   DEL  ToRRE,   80 

Alba,  Duchess  of,  197,  200 
Albemarle,  Countess  of,  258 
Angclico,  Fra,  15,  16,  92 
Anne,  Queen,  239 
Anthony,  S.,  18,  19 
Argentina,  Malaspina,  45 
Ariosto,  61 

Arnolfini,  Jean,  88,  89 
Audran,  207 

Balkenedc,  i  50 
Balthazar,  Prince  Don,  185 
Barbarossa,  the  Emperor,  250 
Beatrix  of  Burgundy,  250 
Beaumont,  Sir  George,  286 
Beck  ford,  242 

Bellini,  Gentile,  64,  65,  74 
Bellini,  Giovanni,  64-68,  102 
Bellini,  Jacopo,  58,  64 
Benedict  XII.,  Pope,  13 
Blake,  William,  1 16 
Boccaccio,  41 
Boleyn,  Anne,  1 1 1 
Bonaparte,  Eliza,  233 
Bonaparte,  Joseph,  180 
Botticelli,  26-29,  4' 
Boucher,  223-2  ;,o,  277 
Breughel,  93-95 
Buckingham,  238 
Burncy,  Dr.,  261 


Burney,  Miss,  272 
Butler,  Samuel,  241 
Buttall,  Jonathan,  269 

Caesar  Borgia,  35 
Caraargo,  2 1  5 
Canaletto,  249,  251-252 
Carlisle,  Lady,  105 
Caroline,  Queen,  243 
Carpaccio,  65,  69-71 
Castiglione,  Balda^sare,  54 
Catherine  of  Alexandria,  S.,  52 
Chardin,  217-223,  227 
Charles    I.,    54,     126,    128,    181, 

237 
Charles  II.,  237 
Charles  V'.,  the  Emperor,  74,  75, 

89,  104,  1 12 
Charles  IX.,  of  France,  204 
Christina,  Duchess  of  Milan,  i  i  2 
Cimabue,  9,  10 
Claude,  I  55,  285 
Clecves,  Anne  of,  1 1  2 
Clement  VII.,  Pope,  44 
Clouet,  Francois,  201-204 
Clouet,  Jean,  202 
Colonna,  Vittoria,  30,  44 
Coram,  Capciin,  244 
van  den  Corput,  Cornelia,  I  55 
Coventry,  Lady,  257 
Coypcl,  2  1 7 


295 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Cranach,  105-107 
Crivclli,  61,  62,  65 
Cromwell,  237 
Cruzat,  209 
Cuyp,  153-155 

Dante,  13,  41 
David,  229-234 
Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  271 
Digby,  Sir  Kcnelm,  130 
Dintevillc,  Jean  de,  1 1 1 
Dobson,  238 
Doni,  Maddalena,  51 
Dudley,  Sir  Henry  Bate,  271 
Diirer,  Albrccht,  97,  99-104,  143 
van    Dyck,     126-131,     137,     181, 
193.  237,  238 

Elgin,  Lord,  234 

Eliot,  George,  26 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  of  Austria,  204 

Erasmus,  108 

Eworts,  Hans,  236 

van  Eyck,  Hubert,  86,  87,  201 

van  Eyck,  Jan,  86-90,  201 

Ferdinand  II.,  of  Naples,  62 

Fielding,  246 

Fischer,  Dr.,  268 

Fox,  Charles,  260 

Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  23-25 

Francis,  Saint,  of  Assisi,  9,  11,  12, 

14,  72 
Francois  I.,  36,  37,  45,  203 
Frederigo  di  Montcfeltro,  30 
Froben,  108 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  266-275 
Galen,  80 
Gardner,  Mrs.,  149 


Garrick,  David,  246,  258 

Garrick,  Violetta,  246 

van  der  Gccst,  Cornelius,  130 

George  II.,  244,  245,  255 

George  III.,  240,  256,  259 

George  IV.,  256 

Gcrsaint,  210,  218 

Ghirlandajo,  40 

Gillot,  207 

Giorgione,  71-74 

Giotto,    10,    11-15,    17,    21,    23, 

Goldsmith,  246,  258 

Gonzaga,  Ludovico,  58 

Goya,  197-200 

de  la  Grange,  Justus,  165 

El  Greco,  172-178 

Gresham,  Sir  Thomas,  236 

Guardi,  249,  253 

de  Guevara,  Fernando,  176 

Gunnings,  257 

Hals,  Frans,  131,  134-139,  264 
Hamilton,  Duchess  of,  257 
Hamilton,  Lady,  281 
Handel,  255 
Hastings,  Warren,  272 
Hawkwood,  Sir  John,  21 
Hay,  General,  89 
Helena,  S.,  83 

Henrietta  Maria,  Queen,  128 
Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  237 
Henry  V^II.,  40,  235,  236 
Henry  VIII.,  40,  109,  112,  202 
Hobbcma,  155-158 
Hogarth,  160,  200,  240-248 
Holbein,  97,  108-I14,  236 
de  Hooch,  Peter,  163-169,  24S 
Horneck,  Miss,  260 
Hudson,  255,  256 


296 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Innocent  III.,  Pope,  7,  9 
Innocent  VIII.,  Pope,  58 
Innocent  X.,  Pope,  187 
Isabel  of  Portugal,  86,  1 15 

Jeanne  de  Chenany,  88 
John  of  Bavaria,  86 
Johnson,  Dr.,  258 
Jones,  Inigo,  113,  127,  237 
Julius   II.,  Pope,   40,  42,  52,   53, 
187 

KaufFmann,  Angelica,  261,  26S 
Kcppel,  Admiral,  256-258 
Kratzcr,  Nicholas,  109 

Lancret,  2  14-2  16 

Lely,  Sir  Peter,  237,  238 

Lemoine,  223 

Lennox,  Lady  Sarah,  259 

Leo    X.,    Pope,    36,  43,    53,    54, 

Leonardo  da  \"inci,  23,  32-38,  46, 

50,  71,  276 
Leonardo  Loredano,  Doge,  d"] 
Limousin,  203 
Lisa,  Monna,  35,  36 
Longhi,  249 
Lorenzo  Ldtto,  79,  80 
Louis  XI\'.,  205,  206,  223 
Louis  XV'.,  217,  223,  226 
Louis  X\'I.,  231 
Lucrezia,  24 
Luther,  Martin,  44,  104 

Mabusc,  236 

Mantcgna,   58-61,   64,    iii,    123, 

12+.  '43 
Marat,  231 
Margarita,  Infanta,  189 


Maria    Louisa,   Queen    ot    Spain, 

•97 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  129 
Mary,  Queen,  1 15 
Massaccio,  22-23,  24,  43,  50,  85, 

257 
Masseo,  Brother,  I  I 
Maurice,  Prince  of  Orange,  150 
Maximilian,    the     Emperor,    103, 

106 
Mead,  Dr.,  2>o 
de  Medici,  Catherine,  45 
di  Medici,  Cosimo,  18,  24,  27,  45 
di  Medici,  Lorenzo,  27,  41 
Melanchthon,  105 
Mcmling,  90-92 
Michelangelo,   30,  36,  38-47,  48, 

50.    53.    '27.    '83.    224»    256, 

264 
Milton,  23 

Mor,  Antonius,  115,  116,236 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  109 
Morland,  George,  259,  288  294 
Moroni,  80,  81 
Morton,  Sir  Thomas,  129 
Moser,  Miss,  268 
Murillo,  172,  193-196 

Napoleon,  231,  232,  234 

Oggionno,  Marco  da,  34 
Oliver,  Isaac,  236 
Orgaz,  Count,  174 


Pacheco,  177,  179 
Palmer,  Mr.,  255 
Patch,  257 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  123 
Pepys,  Samuel,  110,  237 
Pcral,  199 

97 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


I'crugino,  46,  48-50 

Peter  Martyr,  66 

Petrarch,  41 

Philip  II.  of  Spain,  174 

Philip  III.  of  Spain,  i  18 

PhilipIV.  of  Spain,  181,  182,  184, 

191 
Philip  the  Good,  86 
Picro  della  Francesca,  30,  31,  44 
Pisancllo,  18,  19,  64,  65 
Pius  V'll.,  Pope,  232 
Pompadour,  Madame  dc,  227 
Pope,  255 

Potter,  P.-iul,  I  50-1  53 
Poussin,  Nicolas,  186,  285 
de  Predis,  38 
Preja,  Palido  da,  186 
Prosper,  Don,  189 

de  Quiroga,  Caspar,  176 

Raphael,  43,  46,  50-57,  1 1 1,  256 
Rccamier,  Madame,  232 
Rembrandt,  54,  140-149,  165,  191, 

256 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  46,  75,  134, 

254-265,  273,  276-279 
Ricci,  240 
Richardson,  246 
Richmond,  Duke  of,  128,  280 
Robespierre,  23  i 
Romney,  276-282,  289 
Rubens,    54,   1 16-125,    '27,    183, 

208,  260 
Ruthvcn,  Mary,  128 
dc  Ruyter,  167 


Salting,  Mr.,  287 
Saskia,  142,  144 
Savonarola,  26,  29 


Selvc,  George  de,  1 1  i 

Selwyn,  George,  260 

Scrizait,  Madame,  233 

Seymour,  Jane,  1 1 1 

Sforza,  Ludovico,  33 

Sheridan,  Mrs.,  257 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  262,  271 

Sixtus,  Pope,  56 

Soane,  Sir  John,  242 

Spinola,  185 

Squarcionc,  58 

Stcen,  Jan,  159-162 

Sterne,  Lawrence,  259 

Strangways,  Lady  Susan,  260 

Stuart,  James,  Duke  of  Lcinstcr, 

130 
Stuart,  Mary,  204 

Thornhill,  Sir  James,  240,  241 
Thralc,  Mrs.,  246,  261 
Tiepolo,  249,  253 
Titian,   45,   73-79,    81,   82,    183, 

247,  256 
Titus,  son  of  Rembrandt,  145 
Torre,  Niccolo  del,  80 
Torrigiano,  40 
Tuke,  Sir  Bryan,  109 

Ucello,  Paolo,  19,  20-21,  58 

Ursula,  S.,  69-70,  90,  91 

van  Uylenborch,  Hendrick,  142 

Velasquez,     131,     172,    179-193, 

202 
Veronese,  Paolo,  82,  83,  183 
Verrocchio,  32 

Walpole,  Horace,  260,  283 
Walpolc,  Sir  Robert,  245 


298 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Wareham,  Archbishop,  109 
Wattcau,  206-214,  22  + 
Wellington,  Dulcc  of,  180 
William  of  Orange,  237,  240 
William  III.,  54 
Wilson,  Richard,  283-287 


Winckclmann,  229 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  54 
Wychcrlcy,  238 


Zuccarclli,  284 


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